


Unplanned Parenthood

by lori (zakhad), zakhad



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2018-07-21 21:28:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 71
Words: 309,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7405531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zakhad/pseuds/lori, https://archiveofourown.org/users/zakhad/pseuds/zakhad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Parallels Worf makes Deanna his Soh-chIm, aka Klingon version of a godmother, for Alexander -- in one of the alternate parallel universes. This is a story of the consequences of that promise if Worf had done so and then was killed in the line of duty.</p><p>Primarily TNG - DS9 characters make appearances quite late in the story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Soh-chIm

**Author's Note:**

> My muse is being Klingon -- stubborn, willful, not wanting to finish anything that's in progress. As usual the solution is yet another unfinished story. Thanks to Silverfairy22 for an emailed suggestion that led to this particular story. I don't know where it will end up, but it'll unwind itself over season 7's episodes, part of Deep Space Nine and the transition to the 1701-E with the usual exclusion of Insurrection and Nemesis. And of course Worf won't be around.

What lingers from the parent's individual past, unresolved or incomplete, often becomes part of her or his irrational parenting.

_Virginia Satir_

There are times as a parent when you realize that your job is not to be the parent you always imagined you'd be, the parent you always wished you had. Your job is to be the parent your child needs, given the particulars of his or her own life and nature.

_Ayelet Waldman_

  
  
  
  


Deanna watched the time trickle off the clock she’d placed on the table, and wondered if she could move Alexander without waking him. The little boy who was younger than he appeared had fallen asleep with his arms around her, nestled in her left arm with his head against her shoulder -- he’d curled up his legs, and his knees pushed against her ribs uncomfortably. But if being held in a near-fetal position was what he needed to sleep, she would allow that.

She knew when Beverly approached -- she’d been waiting patiently for about forty minutes for the doctor to come, as she’d sat there in Worf’s quarters, keeping the boy company and trying to comfort him while his father was in surgery. She’d been paying attention to Beverly’s emotions from afar, taking cues from her friend’s anxiety, and then from Beverly’s sadness. The doctor would come to notify them and it would be time to stand up and do as Worf had asked her to do, because it was clear from the grief that Beverly would tell them Worf had died on the table, that there had been nothing she could do to revive him, after he’d died a warrior’s death, defending their captain on an away mission gone wrong.

“Computer, allow Dr. Crusher to enter,” she whispered, and when the door opened without the need for the annunciator Beverly stood a moment in surprise, then stepped inside, giving her that apologetic, sympathetic expression of pathos she expected.

“He’s been asleep. I don’t want to wake him yet.”

“Okay,” Beverly said, sitting on the edge of the couch a few feet away, hands in her lap, shoulders drawn forward and in -- her body spoke clearly of not liking what she was there to do at all, drawing in on itself and wishing she could be elsewhere. “I informed the captain. He intends to come see him, after he reviews the will.”

“I already know what it will say. Worf asked me to be his Soh-chIm last year.” When Beverly looked confused, she went on. “It amounts to being his godmother, his mother if his parents are deceased. Worf felt that because I have helped him so much since he came back aboard that I was the most like a mother to Alexander.”

The boy shifted, and sat up -- Deanna let her arm fall away and watched him scrub his eyes free of sleep, and notice the doctor’s presence. “He’s dead, isn’t he?” Alexander said in a low voice.

“I’m so sorry,” Beverly whispered, putting a hand on Alexander’s little shoulder.

“Did Worf explain to you what would happen to you if he died?” Deanna ignored Beverly’s scandalized stare -- humans handled these matters differently, but she knew from all of the conversations with Worf as she guided her friend through parenting his son in as Klingon a manner as could be managed on a ship full of other species that straightforward and honest would be what Alexander needed.

“He said you would take care of me.” Alexander surprised her -- he wanted to cry, but the tears weren’t coming. “I want to see him.”

Beverly started to protest. “I don’t think -- “

“I WANT TO SEE HIM!”

Beverly stared at Deanna in horror. She understood why -- the damage had been extensive. The energy weapon used by the Kortalane was messy, compared to the neat destruction of the Starfleet phaser.

“He needs to see him,” Deanna said calmly. “Beverly.”

“I should clean -- “

“I want to see him, as he is,” Alexander demanded, and now the tears were spilling out, but he was determined. “I want to see how he died. I want to see him!”

“Please,” Deanna added, softly, underscoring the request and knowing Beverly would accept her judgment.

They walked slowly, but as they left the lift and made the final approach to sickbay’s doors, Alexander broke away from them, running, almost colliding with Will Riker as the door opened. Will caught the boy, but Alexander started to wail and hit the first officer with little fists.

“Let him go,” Deanna exclaimed over the noise. Will’s surprise at that led to dropping the boy on his feet, and Alexander darted around Will into sickbay. Will stepped out of their way as Deanna pushed past him.

She walked sedately around to the left, into the surgical bay where Ogawa was staring at the little boy, standing at the side of the biobed just staring at Worf’s body. The nurse had been working on repairing damage, following a procedure per Starfleet -- it wasn’t a Klingon custom to clean up after death.

Alexander was starting to hyperventilate, trying not to cry, and Deanna stood back -- she sensed surprise from Will and Beverly, now at her back and trying to comprehend what was going on. She heard the sickbay doors open again, but had no time to consider who it was. Alexander stiffened and threw his head back in agony, screaming out a Klingon death howl. He’d seen Worf do this for his mother, and now he was honoring his father in the only way he could, despite all the conflict he’d had with Worf, struggling with and against Klingon customs in a foreign and decidedly un-Klingon environment.

But he wasn’t a grown man, and Alexander’s wail was more plaintive than angry, and he fell on his knees and swayed as if he’d used up everything he had. Deanna stepped forward and dropped to a knee, and caught him gently -- he fell against her limply as she cradled him against her. She glanced over her shoulder. The captain had come in, and stood next to Will, arms crossed, clearly concerned and feeling awkwardly undecided about whether to stay or go.

“What do you want to do with the body?” she asked, surprised that she herself hadn’t reacted yet -- Worf’s disfigurement was almost total, the face seared and twisted with bone visible. But she knew what a Klingon would do -- dispassionate acceptance of the death of a warrior, who had gone out in glorious fashion, was the way. And Alexander needed none of her own emotional reaction. He already had enough of his own pain. Which was likely why she hadn’t accessed her own, dealing with the pain of others was a counselor’s job, and setting herself aside was a longstanding habit.

A little voice, the counselor in her, told her quietly that this would help her be the mother Alexander really needed. Being a mother was not a job -- it was a vocation, it would take all that she had, caring for this boy from another culture.

“It doesn’t matter,” Alexander said, his tiny voice carrying a steely tone he didn’t typically have. “It’s nothing but a shell.”

“We are all his friends,” Deanna said softly. “We’d like to give him a Starfleet service. But we would respect your wishes if you did not want that.”

Alexander lay against her in resignation. “I think he would want that. He would be honored by it.”

“Okay,” she said, finally doing as she’d wanted, smoothing his wiry hair with a light hand, putting her arms around him tightly. He turned slightly and started to cry, finally, and she rocked him gently and let him do that. Behind them the humans silently left the room.

“What will happen to me?” Alexander whispered at length, his hand clenched around some of her dress.

“You don’t think I intend to keep my promise?”

“He wants me to be a Klingon warrior,” Alexander said warily. “You are Betazoid.”

“What do you want? Do you want to live with your grandparents?”

Alexander wavered, between fear and dread and anxiety, and clung more tightly.

“I could drop you off on the homeworld, I suppose, and let you run the streets like a little _boqrat_ .”

The unexpected statement brought a bark of laughter out of Alexander’s gut -- he wriggled, and threw his arms around her neck. She sat back and hugged him in return, and smiled.

“You sound like him.”

“I can imitate him any time you like. We’ve served together for a long time, I knew him well.”

“Will we live together?”

Deanna pushed him away, rose to her feet, and held out a hand, which he took -- that was usual. It was how they were, together. She was the only one Alexander ever held hands with. She led him back out to main sickbay, where Will, Beverly, and the captain were talking in low tones, standing in the middle of the room.

“I need quarters with room for Alexander,” she said, meeting the captain’s gaze, and she saw that he understood -- not Worf’s rooms, not hers, but something new to both of them. Neutral ground to start something new.

“We’ll have something ready by the end of the day,” Captain Picard said. “Alexander… I’m very sorry about your father.”

Alexander scowled, gripping Deanna’s fingers tightly. She turned for the door. “We need to go pack your things.”

It was a better option than staying and finding out why Will was so concerned, staring at her. Beverly was smiling a little, but saw that things were well in hand. The captain merely felt a little relief, probably that he hadn’t had to say much more to the child than he had. Despite having interacted with Alexander often enough on many occasions, this was a unique situation -- dealing with a child grieving the loss of a parent wasn’t something he enjoyed, and over the years he’d showed the same discomfort with each encounter with a child he’d had to inform that a parent had died. He still did it, however, rather than delegate to Will or to her.

“We’ll have a lot of decisions to make,” she said in the lift, still holding Alexander’s hand. “But we’ll have bigger quarters. We can decorate my room as I like, and your room as you like, and then the living room can be both Betazoid and Klingon.”

“That’s fair,” Alexander acknowledged. He scowled again, for a moment. “Where should we put the shrine for Father?”

“I think we should decide that when we see our new quarters,” she said.

She let Alexander work on his things, and looked around Worf’s room. He would want all his weapons to go to his son. The pips and a Federation flag would go to the boy as usual. She took down his bat’leth, the mek’leth, found a variety of knives in a drawer. The room smelled like Worf, she realized, like whatever it was he used instead of cologne -- was it incense of some kind? It made her think of how much more she would have to learn about a different culture and how much Alexander would need her support.

There was a picture of K’Ehleyr and Worf, in the drawer of the nightstand. Deanna stared at it for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” she told them quietly, out loud. “I know I won’t be Klingon enough. But I will do my best.”

\------------------

Worf’s funeral had been Starfleet standard -- Alexander refused to attend until the last minute, and held on to Deanna’s arm as if he could barely stand it. But he didn’t cry. He’d done enough of that, he said.

Life resettled around the loss of Worf. It was the way Starfleet worked -- people came and went, by dying in the line of duty or by transferring, and the crew re-organized itself. Lieutenant McCormick became the security chief. Deanna knew that just as she did, her friends were grieving the loss, especially Alexander. She had appointments with many of the security department’s officers, processing their loss of their chief. Will had talked to her over a drink in Ten Forward. Beverly only mentioned Worf in passing here and there, grimacing a little in pain but not lingering on it. Data, having been through a number of funerals since Tasha, said little on the subject of the loss to anyone. Geordi came to her for one session, and seemed to be grieving as well as one could be said to grieve well.

The captain had been another matter. He’d said very little. Knowing him as she did, Deanna suspected he was feeling quite a bit of guilt that Worf had died throwing himself in the path of a shot intended for the captain. She waited two weeks for the captain to get around to talking to her about it, and finally headed to the ready room.

When she walked into the room, the captain smiled up at her. “Deanna, how are you? We haven’t seen you on the bridge so often lately.”

“I’ve had quite a few appointments. With one exception.” She sat down across the desk from him and smoothed her pants in just the way she’d always smoothed down her skirt. A nervous gesture; she folded her hands in her lap.

“How is Alexander?”

Her smile faded. “As well as can be expected. He’s been acting out in school. I wish I had a male Klingon friend, to bring in to help him with this. He’s so young, and the entire reason his grandparents sent him here is because he needed his father’s guidance.”

“Have you thought about asking Will?”

She burst into laughter, caught herself, and shook her head. “You remember what happened when Worf asked for his help? I know Will spent time eating gagh on a Klingon vessel, but I don’t think he makes a very good Klingon.”

“Well,” the captain began, giving her a chagrined smile, “forgive me for saying so, but you aren’t exactly Kahless the Unforgettable yourself.”

“No, but I’m informed that I do an excellent impression of Worf. And I am the one Worf chose, and while I’m certain he’d rather any of his comrades aboard the _Enterprise_ raise Alexander than anyone else, I’m doing my best.”

The captain nodded thoughtfully. “If there’s anything I can do to help,” he said.

She knew he was simply being respectful, and that he didn’t mean literally ‘anything.’ She understood what he meant was not what came to her mind, then, but as she thought about it she realized that he really could do something, and it would be good for all three of them.

“You could spend time with Alexander,” she suggested after a pause.

It stunned him. But she could tell he was uncomfortable but not entirely unwilling. “You think that might help,” he said dubiously.

“He’s Worf’s son. He knows the high regard his father had for you. I think you might be the only person aboard he would respect, other than myself, because he knows how his father felt about us.” Deanna smiled. The captain might thank her eventually for giving him a way of doing something to repay the debt he had to Worf. “It wasn’t what I came to speak to you about, but you did say anything.”

“I’m not sure I’m up to it. You know my history with children.”

She couldn’t stifle the smirk. “I know you haven’t given yourself half a chance with them. You did fine with Alexander after the transporter accident.”

“You mean when I was diminished by half, and had to have Alexander’s help to defeat the Ferengi? Pretend to be Will Riker’s son? I was miserable at that into the bargain. The only times I’ve ever been able to get along with children was when I treated them like officers.”

“Oh, so you decided to be yourself,” she said with a fond smile. “That’s generally a good policy regardless.”

“I could hardly start giving the boy orders.”

“You could always talk to him about his father. There’s a lot you know about him that he doesn’t.”

The captain stared at the surface of his desk instead of answering. But he surprised her -- rather than stay in deep rumination, he met her eyes, and smiled. “Are you ordering me to do this?”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever ordered you to do anything. Have I?”

“Well -- are you asking as the counselor, or as a friend?”

Deanna tilted her head and wrinkled her brow. “Does that matter?”

He considered, his intense gaze a bit unsettling -- she had over the years been quite fond of her commanding officer, had been comfortable discussing all manner of things with him. There were times, however, when he had the ability to unsettle her. Family matters were one of the least comfortable things for him to discuss and rarely came up in any context.

“If you’re not comfortable doing it, I understand,” she said, trying not to sound disappointed. She started to get up.

“Deanna, wait. It’s just -- “

Deanna settled back in the chair again. “I don’t want Will to do it because… I’d rather not spend a great deal of time with him, off duty.”

Now she had shocked him. He stared openly at her, his confusion evident in his eyes.

“I’m all that Alexander has left,” she said. And thinking about that led to all the things she’d been trying to set aside, since taking in the Klingon boy. “When my father died, my mother went into a depression for a long, long time. Our family saw how isolated she was determined to be and how it was affecting me. Her sister offered to take me in, my father’s family offered, just for a while until Mother finished grieving, but Mother refused -- all that kept her from sinking into a deep despair was having me, being a mother to me was all she had left. It was like being on an island, just the two of us, and it was so difficult. Our personalities are oil and water, as you know, and we were in tears about Daddy when we weren’t in tears about each other -- oh, we argued so much, over anything and everything, it was terrible. But it helped us to have my aunt, and my cousins, because we could spend time with them. Take a break from each other. The connections were important because it helped us balance a little. Alexander is pushing the other children away, even the boy who lost his father -- especially him. He comes home and clings to me as if I’m the only thing in the universe keeping him alive. And all I can think about is what will happen to him if anything happens to me.”

The captain sagged a little, understanding her concern. He sighed. “It would perhaps be better if you had several people get to know him. What about his grandparents?”

“I’ve spoken to them. They aren’t unwilling to have him visit, but they feel they are too old to be his guardians on a permanent basis. He’s not like Worf. They described Worf as a child trying very hard to be good -- to be the model of an obedient child. Alexander is more like his mother.”

“I’ve noticed.” The captain thought a moment more. “Is it that you don’t want to spend time with Will, or you don’t want Alexander to?”

He’d never pried into personal matters before, so this was wholly unlike him. But, she supposed, it was a fair enough question so far as Alexander went. She’d made the boy his business. “I don’t mind if he spends some time with Alexander. I simply don’t want him to be a major influence in Alexander’s life. I don’t think that would be helpful.”

“I thought Will was good with children.”

Deanna contemplated her response carefully. “In short intervals, he can be.”

He gazed at her with more surprise, and some suspicion. “But you wouldn’t want him to be a caretaker for your children.”

She felt her chin come up slightly in defense. “Will is a good friend. But no.”

The captain went through a confusing muddle of feelings that she avoided labeling and tried not to respond to, and leaned back in his chair. “I suppose I’m just confused, now, but it’s immaterial -- your feelings and your reasons are your own, after all. I should be flattered that you’re asking me, despite my ineptitude with children.”

“Oh,” she exclaimed, shaking her head. “Ineptitude? Captain, honestly, you’re not pretending that being with a child takes any sort of skill?”

“Doesn’t it?”

“It takes honesty, and perhaps a little humility, and willingness to laugh once in a while. If you didn’t have anything to offer I wouldn’t have asked you.”

“But -- “

He didn’t continue, but she suspected that he would continue to feel the curiosity until he understood more about her hesitance to trust Will with her child. Essentially, Alexander was her child -- and she had been feeling that way herself, more and more. And the more she felt that way, the less she spent time with Will. He’d stopped asking her to meals, finally, after a week and a half of her refusing to do so.

Well, the captain would just have to endure his own curiosity for a while longer.

“It’s almost time for me to go pick him up from school,” she said. “I want you to come to dinner tonight.”

His double-take was enough to make her smile -- he actually laughed at her. “That was an order, if there ever was one.”

Deanna inhaled, bowing her head. “I’m inviting you to dinner,” she amended. “I’d like you to come talk to him. About schoolwork, or anything else you deem safe. Please?”

“I’ll be there.” He hesitated. “We’re not -- eating Klingon food, are we?”

“We’re eating whatever each of us wants to eat. I’m not forcing him to conform to a Klingon diet, after all.”

“All right.”

Deanna smiled. “We’ll see you later, then.” She got up and left the ready room.

The routine with Alexander resumed at the end of school -- she walked him to her new quarters, and he updated her on the homework he had done with the brusque officiousness of his father. They always had a short chat about what they would do in the evening. It had been the holodeck, a few times, and she was starting to teach him how to play chess, with the intent of having Data come in to play with him later once he understood the basics.

“The captain is coming for dinner,” she said, when he asked the usual question.

Alexander gaped at her. “Captain Picard?”

“Well, yes. He’s the only captain we have, you know.” She smiled and ran a hand down the back of his head. “He asked how you were doing so I suggested that he come see for himself. Is that all right?”

Usually, when she made a decision like this, involving him, she would ask him if he approved -- it gave him a sense of control over his life that she understood he needed. He usually went along with her decisions when she did so. But he seemed upset.

“Alexander?”

“Is he -- “ He didn’t seem able to finish the question.

Deanna led him from the lift to their door. She saw Will coming from the other direction -- well, that figured. She’d moved to deck seven, to have a larger suite -- Will’s quarters were in the next section over, across the corridor from the captain’s.

“Hello, Will,” she said cordially, turning to walk inside with Alexander.

“Do you have a minute?” Will asked.

She hesitated in her open door and looked down at her son. “Why don’t you change and wash your hands? I’ll be in shortly.”

“Okay.” Alexander cast a dark look at the first officer and went inside; Deanna stepped back into the corridor and let the door close.

“What can I do for you, Commander?”

Rank caused a flicker of frustration for Will. “I just wanted… to check in with you. Is everything all right?”

“As much as it could be. He misses Worf so much. One day at a time, as they say.”

“Is everything all right… between us?” He gazed through his lashes at her, and the frustration simmered behind his cool expression.

“Fine, why?”

“It doesn’t feel all right. I know we weren’t -- “

“You said we should keep our relationship professional. We’ve done that. And we’ve been good friends all this time, and we’ll continue to be good friends, except now I have to spend most of my time with Alexander -- at least until he’s through this time of grieving. He’ll get older and things will get better, and I’ll have more time for myself then.”

Will nodded. “You’re right. I just wanted to help if I could.”

“I appreciate that, but I think we’re fine. Are you playing tomorrow night?”

Will eyed her -- the jazz band was supposed to play in Ten Forward, for a birthday party for Mavis Singletree. “Unless something comes up. Are you bringing Alexander?”

“We’ll see -- I was planning to. Ensign Singletree is one of Alexander’s teachers, after all. She takes the kids to a holodeck for their physical education class three times a week. See you there?”

“Sure.” Will watched her turn to go inside. After the doors closed behind her, Deanna paused -- Will was still there, outside, contemplating. She sensed him come to a decision and move off. Toward his quarters, away from her.

Deanna set the table and even put a vase with flowers out. All that remained was plates of food, which she would get once everyone was present and able to specify what they wanted. Alexander came out of his room and stared at the pink tulips she was fiddling with.

“Are you -- “

Deanna turned from the table when he didn’t continue. “Why are you confused?”

Alexander cocked his head and gave her a look of frustration that reminded her so much of Worf that she almost lost it -- but she kept her composure, hopefully didn’t show any of it in her face, and waited.

“Why is the captain coming to dinner?”

“Because I asked him to come. He’s my friend, just like your father was my friend. I spend time with my friends, you know that. Just like you spend time with yours. You’ve had dinner at Bo’s, with him and his parents, before.”

“You aren’t trying to choose a mate?”

“Oh -- “ She tried not to show too much consternation. “No, I’m not. But maybe you should tell me if that would be a problem, since I might try to do that in the future?”

“You should have a mate. But you should wait until a respectful period has passed,” Alexander announced.

She stared at him open-mouthed. “You do know that your father and I were not mates,” she said softly at last.

Alexander glared at the floor. He was such an adorable little Klingon, really. “I know.”

Deanna came to him, got on her knees -- she thought, not for the first time, that she really needed to get pads to wear on them -- and gripped his shoulders. “You wanted us to be?”

“I kind of did, because -- “ He fidgeted and finally looked at her. “I think it would have made everything better. I think he really liked you, and I really wanted -- I think it would have been easier for us. You always knew what to say and how to say it. You always helped him when we fought.”

“But Alexander, I really wasn’t wanting that kind of relationship with your father. And I don’t think he wanted it with me -- he would have said something. Or I would have been able to tell. You know I’m an empath.” She put a hand to his cheek.

“Then why did Father tell me he was going to talk to you about it?”

Deanna stared at the little boy, in complete shock. Alexander’s earnest eyes pleaded with her to understand.

“He even talked to Commander Riker. He said he had to ask for permission. But I don’t understand why he had to do that. And then he never said anything about it again, and he wouldn’t tell me what happened when he asked.”

That explained the anger Alexander had toward Will, when he’d come by in those first few days to check in on her, and tried to talk to the boy. Deanna felt anger herself now. She took his face in her hands and tried not to show much of how she felt in her face.

“I love you, and I’m going to do my best to be here for you. You know this?”

He smiled, nodding slightly. “I love you too.”

“But you know I was helping you as a counselor before, and a friend. I have a lot of friends. They are all kinds of different people, and none of them are Klingons -- your father was the only Klingon I’ve ever considered a close friend. There are so many different cultures aboard, and all of them show affection differently. Having a friend over for dinner is just spending time with someone I care about. I’m not going to do more than that, until I decide I want a mate. And I promise that I will tell you, if that happens. Please don’t think I’m going to marry Mr. Data when he comes over to play chess with me, all right?”

Alexander giggled about it -- the android was one of his favorites of the crew, surprisingly, maybe because Data showed no anxiety in his presence. He also liked Data’s cat, Spot. “All right.”

“I don’t want you to be confused about this. Next time you think something is going on, just ask me, hmm?” She kissed his forehead ridges and got to her feet. “What would you like for dinner?”

“Can I have spaghetti?”

Deanna replicated him spaghetti, a side of beans, a piece of cornbread -- it was a monotonous favorite of his, just the way his friend Bo liked it, and he’d had it many times over the past few weeks. Comfort food. She was bringing her own bowl of salad to the table when the captain arrived. She let him in, smiling, and let him replicate a meal for himself.

“Hello, Alexander,” he said across the table at the boy, with more bravado than cheer.

“Hello, Captain,” came the polite response.

“Alexander was telling me he’s supposed to choose a project involving a boat,” Deanna said. “I wondered if you might have some suggestions?” She brought her glass of water from the replicator, placed the glass of milk in front of Alexander, and sat next to him to start eating her salad.

The captain got off to a slow, uncertain start, but Alexander helped him by asking a question, proving he was interested. They had a lengthy conversation about kinds of boats, until it came out that Alexander was supposed to somehow build one, and then dessert was forgotten.

At least he allowed Alexander to actually choose what he wanted to build. A model of the acceptable kind of boat was replicated, and then Deanna watched from the sidelines while the two of them started to piece together a Bothan battleship, with turrets, high pointed ends, tall masts, and tall rectangular sails. Alexander stopped feeling wary and was nearly as excited as the captain as the model took shape.

The three of them were silent as Alexander gently put the last band in place, to fasten the fourth sail to the mast in the front of the boat. And then it was done, and Alexander turned to beam at her. “What do you think?”

“It’s perfect. What will you name it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we should name it after the _Enterprise_?”

The captain smiled. “A good thought. The first one was a battleship, on Earth. But this is a Bothan vessel, and I believe the custom on Botha is to name seagoing vessels after beautiful women.”

“Can I name it after your mother?” Alexander asked her.

“If you’re going to do that, you’ll need to send her a hologram of it,” Deanna said, grinning. “She always wants to know what the ship looks like before someone names it after her.”

Alexander was young enough to be that gullible. “How many ships does she have named after her?”

“Oh, you know… There is an old saying, about a beautiful face launching a thousand ships. I think it’s at least that many.”

He pondered this seriously for a moment. “Do you have any ships named after you?”

Deanna shook her head. “As far as I know, I don’t.”

“So I’ll name it after you.” He carefully picked up the model and took it to the shelves near her desk, in the corner of the room. He faced them, and smiled sadly. “You're about to tell me it's bedtime.”

“If you just go get ready I won't have to, will I?”

“Good night, Captain. Thanks for helping me.” He was in motion as the response came, and gone without delay behind his bedroom door.

“That wasn't as hard as I thought,” he said, moving from the table to join her on the couch. He paused, watching her rub her eyes. “Is everything all right?”

“Oh, of course. Thank you for coming. It was nice to see him so invested in his project. Having you here was good for him.”

“I was the one doing all the work, but you look tired.”

She turned to face him, weary of everything and wishing she could just stop talking for the day. But he had a sympathetic expression, and his concern -- Jean-Luc Picard had very little room in his life for the kinds of relationships most people had. It was an extraordinary privilege to call him friend, and to know that he felt affection for her -- she knew it wasn’t at all the same as what he felt about the rest of their friends. She doubted anyone understood that, including him.

“Perhaps I need the company as much as Alexander does,” she admitted, shaking her head, looking across the room at the boat.

“I can see why Worf wanted you to be his Soh-chIm. It’s clear Alexander adores you.”

Deanna closed her eyes and tried not to cry. She opened them again when he shocked her, by taking her hand -- he’d sidled closer along the couch to do it. They stared at each other for a long moment.

“What’s wrong?” he said at last.

She thought about denying or minimizing. But there was literally no one else to talk to, about this. Beverly had given her motherly advice that made no sense given she was Betazoid and Alexander conformed to neither human nor Klingon templates. And of everyone on board, he was probably the only one who wouldn’t react to it poorly, if she did confide in him.

“Alexander hates Will,” she said at last, after double-checking -- she sensed Alexander being sleepy and relaxed, likely in bed already.

Jean-Luc’s surprise came and went quickly. “Is there some cause for that?”

Deanna closed her eyes again. “Worf told Alexander that he had gone to Will, to confirm that he would not be stepping on any toes if he -- well. I’m not certain if he wanted to propose marriage, or simply ask me to move in with him, or start to work toward either of those things, but Worf apparently wanted to do something he never got around to telling me he wanted to do. Because Will apparently told him something that dissuaded him.”

At once, Jean-Luc was ill at ease. He was on the verge of saying something, but didn’t.

“You’re going to tell me that everyone thinks that Will and I are together, or were together, or will be together again.” She glanced at him again. He had his poker face -- serious, but not showing his anxiety. He was still holding her hand gently. “That’s my fault.”

His eyebrows rose and fell. “Your fault?”

“Do you know what it’s like, going to Ten Forward or some other public area of the ship, sitting down, and becoming aware that you’re attracting all kinds of attention? All it takes is one person who starts to think about how I might look naked. And then I’m completely unable to focus on whatever I was trying to do, and if the person continues to think about me, he might eventually approach me -- about the tenth time it happened I got the picture that I was likely to alienate them all, eventually. So I give the signal -- “ She waved her hand, her fingers held just so. “And Will comes to sit with me and turn on the charm, and the person’s entire thought process just… goes… away. No intervention necessary.”

Jean-Luc’s smile gradually widened. “So all this time, through the years, it’s all been a strategy and not the galaxy’s most frustrating tease?”

She started to laugh with him quietly. “I didn’t think of that interpretation of it. But I suppose so.”

“Except Will dissuaded Worf,” he said quietly. “Will doesn’t agree, any more, that it’s just strategy?”

“If I paid attention to attraction, it would make it impossible to work with the senior staff. I didn’t know Will had done it until Alexander told me what Worf told him. And that Worf never spoke of it again. Of course he wouldn’t tell his son he’d been discouraged.” Deanna slumped, staring at the floor. “I know Worf didn’t feel… it had to have been motivated by wanting a mother for his son. I wouldn’t have, because I never felt that way about Worf, either. Poor Alexander.”

Jean-Luc gripped her fingers more strongly, and let go -- it had been an attempt to comfort, nothing more, and he was seeing that she wasn’t needing that. “So what will you do?”

“Nothing, of course. Keep telling Will the same thing as always, keep pushing him away when he gets an idea that he can be more than a friend to me. It’s only been the past couple of weeks that he’s shown an inclination to change things.” As she spoke she reached up and dragged the band from her hair, letting it spill loose across her shoulders. She pitched the hair band at the end table.

“You could just tell him you aren’t interested, you know.”

She sighed. “I suppose I could. That would require that I do as I have worked so hard not to do, and react to what I sense instead of what he’s said to me.”

“All right, then. Well, I suppose I should be going, let you get to bed.”

“Thank you again, for coming.” She met his eyes. “I appreciate your discretion, Jean-Luc.”

A whimsical little smile twisted the ends of his mouth. “Another order. Aren’t you full of surprises today?”

“I’m not sure why you would say that.” She stood with him, and a few seconds of consideration led her to smile and nod, rather than hugging him, or any of the other ways she might express affection for her friends. “I hope you’ll visit us again?”

“Or perhaps you should visit me. Allow me to return your hospitality?”

She grinned. “I’d like that. See you tomorrow?”

“Yes, staff briefing at nine hundred.”

Deanna watched him leave, and crossed her arms, thinking about what she might do differently about Will -- it was, she decided at length, best left for when she wasn’t so tired. She turned to go to her own bedroom.


	2. The Mother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of the context for this story is the episode "Lower Decks" in which a young Bajoran woman is sent on a mission and doesn't return. Worf was a part of her preparation for that mission. Of course, in this story, he isn't there.

Deanna settled in with a padd, to finish a few notes from the day’s appointments. Alexander sat on the floor, at the low table in front of the couch, to complete some homework on the larger child’s version of the padd. He worked quietly, as usual. At the moment the _Enterprise_ was on its way to a starbase. 

“Are we having anyone over tomorrow night?” Alexander asked, breaking the long silence.

“I hadn’t planned anything.” Deanna glanced over the top of her padd at the back of his head. “Did you want to invite someone?”

He scooted around to face her, still sitting cross-legged on the carpet. “I just wanted to know. We haven’t had anyone over in a couple days. Can I go over to Bo’s tomorrow after school?”

She smiled - it was the first time since his father died that he wanted to spend time apart from her, other than school. It had been about six weeks since the funeral. “Of course you can. If his parents are okay with that.”

“Am I a good kid?”

She knew, as a counselor, that this sort of question was not what it seemed. “Come here, _tigryonak_.”

He actually growled a little, jumping up to bounce on the couch next to her. He liked his nickname, little tiger, given to him by Helena while he had lived with the Rozhenkos, who had taught him a little Russian. Deanna had started using it after some subspace conversations between the four of them, trying to help Alexander stay connected to the old couple. It was stressful since they wanted to tell him stories about his father as a child, sometimes repeating ones they’d told him before. But Alexander still wanted to see and talk to them, so they had another scheduled call once they got to the starbase. 

Deanna draped an arm across his shoulders and smiled. “I want to tell you a few things about people. There’s a tendency to say someone is good, or bad. But there’s a problem with that. There are a lot of meanings for the word ‘good.’ If you are being a good Klingon, you are concerned with honor and battle, and so many other things specific to the Klingon culture. If you are being a good Betazoid that’s completely different. And a good Starfleet officer sometimes has to really think hard, when Starfleet regulations or orders conflict with their principles. So ‘good’ is one of those words where it actually means you’re meeting expectations, and those can be different from one situation to another.”

Alexander thought about it, and leaned his head back to look her in the eye. “Am I a good kid for you?”

She pressed her lips together against her first impulse to answer, and then gave a more considered answer. “What do you think would happen if you weren’t?”

He turned away, fidgeting, upset. “Father sent me to live on Earth because I was bad.”

“The real reason your father sent you to his parents was because he felt like he wasn’t a good enough father. He loved you more than anything, and he wanted you to have good parents so much that he tried to give you his parents. It wasn’t anything you did, Alexander. It was what he felt he could not do that made him decide to do that. He missed you so much. He told me all about it,” she murmured, adding the lie -- she hadn’t had to be told in words the agony that Worf had gone through deciding to send his son away.

He started to cry again, so she held him and let him do that. The annunciator sounded after ten minutes or so of tears that dwindled to sniffling and then quiet comfort. She nudged him away. “Go wash your face. You need to finish the homework, and then we’ll play a game, all right?”

He was quick to obey -- as he vanished into his room, which had a little bathroom attached, she told the computer to let the captain in. It wasn’t, as had been the case two or three times in the last month, a friendly visit, she guessed. They had had most of the senior staff and a number of the rest of the crew coming and going several times a week -- the captain had been one of many, keeping up with how Alexander was doing and spending time in holodecks or just sitting and playing games. The captain had brought in kits, since Alexander had enjoyed the boat they built together so much, and now it was their habit to work together on some intricate little project made of wood and paper for a few hours now and then.

But those visits were all scheduled. This was something else. Jean-Luc was still in uniform, and he had an apologetic expression. “I hope I’m not bothering you.”

“We were just doing homework and talking. Please have a seat -- would you like something to drink?” she asked, rising to greet him.

“No, I’m fine, thank you.” He joined her on the couch, his stiff posture confirming her sense that he had been trying to work through something and failing. Like most clients, over time he’d developed a long list of successful tactics to handle his stressful experiences, and he’d needed actual counseling less and less. But, also like most clients, he sometimes came back to talk things through, just the same.

“So what’s bothering you, Captain?”

He hesitated, gazing at her as if that question were difficult to understand. 

“Captain?”

“I’ve been thinking about Sito,” he began. 

“She was a bright, dedicated young lady. I have a number of her friends on my current case load.” Deanna shook her head, musing over the loss of another crew member and how it affected so many. “But you feel responsible for her death.”

“It’s always difficult, ordering others into dangerous situations. But Sito was… inexperienced. She wasn’t ready. I tried to make sure she was, but I erred.”

Deanna thought about it. “Worf thought very highly of her,” she said at last. “He knew her well, as he knew all of his staff. We collaborated on performance reviews and I remember he spoke of her as having great potential. She was in the martial arts classes so I remember her as well. And I don’t see that you had any reason to think she wasn’t ready for the mission you assigned to her.”

He gazed at her, and she thought about why he might be surprised -- she’d spoken as an officer, she realized, not given him one of the usual reflective questions that would lead to more introspection and examination of his emotions. 

“If you wanted a counseling session you should have made an appointment,” she said, smiling puckishly. 

“You’ve been drawing some boundaries more often, lately,” he commented, smiling, amused.

“I’ve had to. The more clients I have had, the longer I’m a counselor, the more important it becomes. Especially with clients with whom I have multiple relationships.”

He bowed his head. “Case in point. And now you have a child -- “ He spent a moment feeling dismay at himself. “You’re right, I should have made an appointment. I’m sorry.”

Deanna reached to touch his arm, as he made to go. “It’s all right. It’s not an imposition to sit and talk to a friend.”

“Well, but, you keep calling me captain,” he exclaimed. 

She didn’t answer immediately, because she sensed Alexander returning -- he felt better, calmer, but as he came out he saw the captain and became anxious again.

“The captain wanted to talk to me about a problem he’s having. Since I don’t work in the evening, we were just making an appointment. Is something wrong?”

He came to her, and she realized he was holding something -- pieces of the padd he’d been doing homework on. “I dropped it on the floor and it just came apart. I didn’t mean to,” he exclaimed, starting to tear up. 

“Oh, _tigryonak_ , don’t be so upset, it’s just a padd. You can get another and it will have all your work on it, it’s all stored in the main computer.” She ran her fingers through his hair and pulled him in for a one-armed hug. She thought about what he’d asked earlier -- of course he would feel the same as before. Children felt more than they knew how to put into words. “There isn’t anything you can do or say that will make me send you away, Alexander. Absolutely nothing -- the captain may have to put you in the brig if you do anything really bad, but I promise I will come visit you.”

It was a tried and true tactic for them. Alexander knew well enough that was ridiculous, and a little guffaw broke through the tears. “Okay.”

“I’ll go with you in the morning before school to turn this in to the quartermaster, and get you a new one. Why don’t you go work on your kata in your room while I finish talking to the captain?”

He flashed a smile at her, at the captain, and ran off to do as asked. The captain watched him go, slightly bemused.

Deanna set the pieces of the broken padd aside. “He’s still working through the grief, and revisiting old wounds in the process. Earlier he wanted to know if he is a good kid. I tried to convince Worf that sending him to Earth would do more harm than good, but he was so angry at himself for not knowing what to do when Alexander misbehaved that he did it anyway. Alexander has been so carefully obedient with me because he is terrified that I will do the same, because he believed Worf sent him away because he was bad.”

“Worf was too involved in his personal journey to find himself to understand,” Jean-Luc said distantly. “Alexander needed Worf to focus on him -- and Worf didn’t have the ability to give him what he needed. Of course, both of them needed to be understood, to understand themselves, and it was difficult in the circumstances they were in.”

“That’s an insight I wouldn’t expect from someone who’s inept with children,” she said, teasing. She remembered well the sessions spent talking about his own father, and reasons parents fail to meet the needs of their children.

Jean-Luc gave her a tolerant, semi-amused look, but he was being too introspective to smile about it. “I think about Wesley sometimes,” he said. “Jack told me once that I should do more than meet him for a few minutes. I have to wonder what I would be like if I had.”

“Better with children, perhaps?”

“Better with everyone,” Jean-Luc said with a sigh. “Because it’s the same sort of thing, isn’t it? Being attuned to what’s going on with a child, or seeing the anxiety in a green officer, on the eve of a dangerous mission, and perhaps being comfortable with the less controlled, less organized, very basic emotions we all have to the point that I could have questioned her, reassured her somehow, made the subtle little shift that might have made a difference in her performance that might have allowed her to return to us damaged but not dead.”

Deanna watched his face as he spoke, and allowed herself to indulge in some pride, that one of her clients had come so far from stubborn denial. “We are all on a journey. We all make our choices. We all regret some of them, learn from them. And so you are taking Alexander to the holodeck next week, to teach him how to sail a boat. I can just imagine what a fine pirate he will make.”

It was a sideways tease, poking a little at a recent experience he had had, being a pirate to uncover devious doings of smugglers pillaging artifacts. The crew had all believed, for a short time, that the captain had been killed -- investigating that had revealed the truth, and Will had been able to help him out of the situation. Jean-Luc smirked at the reminder.

“Will told me today that he’s frustrated and confused,” Jean-Luc said, surprising her. He went on to explain. “Specifically, he said that you’ve changed since taking Alexander into your care. He was talking to Beverly, and I suppose peripherally to me, as the three of us were in the ready room at the time. Beverly told him that being a mother changes everyone, and asked him why he was upset about it.”

“And he denied that he was upset with me. I spoke to him just yesterday, about several crew who are in need of intervention -- when he tried to ask me to stay and talk about something else once the professional conversation ended, I told him I had to go, which was true -- he made me late for an appointment with a client, already.” Propping her elbow on the back of the couch, she rested her head against her fist, shifting and folding her leg underneath her. “I’m surprised you even brought it up.”

“I don’t like gossip, I don’t get involved in the private matters of others, especially crew, and I still hold to that,” he said softly. His eyes fixed on hers, solemn and intense. “But I have been trying to pay more attention. Be attuned to my friends. After Worf died, I started to think about all the things he struggled with -- at one point he came to me for advice, and as usual I tried to avoid that, since I’ve thought advice in relationships or other such personal matters to be unhelpful and generally misguided. But he was my friend. I miss him more than I expected to, really. I can’t help but wonder what would have changed, if I had offered advice to Worf.”

Deanna had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, thanks to a horrible hunch. “What did he ask you?”

“He had a great deal of difficulty putting it into words. I think he was trying to ask what to make of advice that Will gave him.”

“It would be easy to make an assumption it’s connected to what I told you about Worf, but I don’t think any of it is your fault, Jean-Luc. How we each navigate our relationships and our emotional reactions is a choice we all make. Worf’s choices were a struggle for him and I think you understand why -- losing his parents meant losing his culture, and he really doesn’t fit into the human culture he was adopted into. His genetics wouldn't allow him to completely acculturate.”

Jean-Luc had fallen into a pensive state, eyes lidded. She waited, monitoring the guilt and sadness they both felt. He looked up finally. “You’re correct, of course. A little late for Worf. But it’s becoming obvious, that everyone’s struggling with the loss of Worf in their own way. I understand why you can’t be Will’s counselor, you explained that early on. I don’t think he’s going to the assistant counselor, either, though.”

Deanna gave a tight smile. Little did the captain know this was an old argument, with Will. “I don’t imagine that he is. I suggested it to him after the funeral.”

“I suppose,” he began hesitantly, “that I expected you to do so in a more official capacity, if needed.”

“You’re saying it’s needed? I’m -- I’m sorry, Captain, I should have -- “

“Deanna,” he interrupted. He took a moment to regroup. “I know why you haven’t noticed it. His behavior changes when you are present. I took him to task for it. It stung, because he didn’t really expect it from me. I’m making you aware of it so you can let me know whether or not he complies. It’s your department, tiny as it is with just three of you.”

“If you keep this up, there will be four of us,” she exclaimed, grinning at him. 

“Oh, no no no,” he said, holding up his hands to fend it off. “I’m trying to… return favors. After all, there isn’t one of the senior staff who hasn’t helped one or more of the rest of us when it was needed. He needed a kick into counseling, I did my best.”

She shook her head. “So you’ll let me know when you’re taking Alexander sailing? I can schedule a manicure while you’re in the holodeck.”

“You don’t want to come sailing with us?”

“I’ve never enjoyed boats.”

He stared at her as if scandalized. “You’ve never been on a boat with me.”

She laughed at him, for the verbal swagger. “Well, that’s true, I’m sure I’ll never be able to compare being on a boat with you to those miserable times I was on a boat with someone else. Being seasick with you must be transcendent by comparison.”

He flicked his fingers in annoyance at it. “Motion sickness medication exists.”

“If it’s so important, I suppose,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll get something from Beverly. And now I’m going to shoo you off, so I have time before Alexander’s bedtime to try to teach him how to plan chess strategy.”

Jean-Luc nodded. “Good night.”

After he was gone, she called Alexander out as she got the chess board. They pushed the table away from the couch and sat cross-legged on either side of it, and midway through the game called a hot chocolate break. 

Alexander seemed to be concentrating intently on the pieces when he proved he had other things on his mind. “What’s it like to be in love?”

“It can be wonderful.” She looked across the board at him, so focused on the game and not on her. “It can be painful, if you can’t be with someone you love.”

“Mother used to tell me she loved my father,” he muttered. His eyes came up and swept away again; he couldn't meet her gaze. “But I don’t understand why they never lived together like other parents do.”

“If you really like your life, your job, your friends, and then you meet someone new who is really wonderful but she lives far, far away and really likes her job and her friends there, what do you think you will do?” Deanna withheld, of course, that list of smart things people usually also did. Things like birth control which prevented accidental pregnancies and all the complications that came with them. That was a discussion for the far future.

Alexander shrugged. “I would go with her or she would go with me. Or maybe we could live part of the time there, and part of the time here.”

“Those might work some of the time, for some people. It isn’t always so simple.”

“I guess not. I wish my parents could have,” he said, reaching over to move his rook one square backward. 

Deanna let the game play out, moving her pieces to counter without strategy, until Alexander put her in checkmate. He grinned as he watched her tip over her king. 

“It’s late -- you need to get ready for bed.” She followed him to his door and kissed his forehead. But he raised his arms, and she leaned for a hug as requested. 

“Deanna,” he began, and lapsed into confusion for a moment. “It’s not right.”

“What’s not right?” She had to stand up straighter, leaning over him was uncomfortable. 

“You said you were going to stay with me, no matter what. You said you would take care of me. If Father had done as he said, you would be my mother. Why can’t I call you Mom?”

She had to hesitate -- careful not to react too strongly, she smiled and caressed his hair. “I didn’t say you couldn’t. I’m not officially your mother unless I adopt you, though. Federation law and Klingon custom aren’t exactly lined up that way -- by the Federation’s way of thinking I’m your guardian.”

He frowned, but something occurred to him. “So you could adopt me,” he said, half-asking.

“I can. But I didn’t want to talk to you about that until we’ve talked about your uncle. You have one, you know. That's the other option -- you could live with him.” Deanna didn't want to think about it -- Klingons demanded obedience and subservience of their children. She feared what would happen -- at worst, he would be injured, at best he would be forced into rigid compliance and his sweet nature crushed in the process of remaking him into a warrior the Klingon way. She hoped Kurn had changed, but knew it was unlikely.

Alexander nodded thoughtfully. “But I’ve never met him.”

“Do you want to? I think you should.”

“I don’t know. I guess. Do you think that’s what is best for me?”

She wondered what he had overheard. She was certain she'd not used that phrase in his presence. “I think it’s time for bed, and we’ll talk more tomorrow.”

\-----------------------

At the end of her last morning session, Deanna went down to Ten Forward and settled in with a sandwich and a bowl of soup, and another padd, this time reading about adoptions, Klingon family customs regarding orphans, and some publications a search had turned up on the psychology of Klingon orphans. She was reading about adopting cross-culture when a shadow darkened the table, and then she recognized that she had been so engrossed in her research that she had not sensed Will approaching.

“Hello,” she said, sparing him a glance and returning to her reading.

“Hi. Something interesting?”

“Something relevant.”

“Mind if I sit down?”

She looked again, and finally set aside the padd, picking up her sandwich. “Go ahead.” 

He sat across from her, and his smile was genuine. “How are you?”

“Doing well -- the ebb of appointments has followed the flood at long last, people have lost and grieved and are now grieving less. I have a few new cases, but it shouldn’t be much of a problem to take a few days of leave.”

His blue eyes lit up at the mention of leave. “I had a few ideas about leave myself.”

“Taking Kathy somewhere special?”

The smile dwindled. “Kathy?”

Deanna chewed, swallowed, and took a sip of her water. “I thought it was Kathy? It could have been Cindy.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Apparently a case of mistaken identity.” If he wasn’t going to admit to what she knew, she wouldn’t push him. Certainly not enough to lead to his demanding to know how she knew, when it was Kathy herself who'd been chatting obviously with another lieutenant about it in Ten Forward one evening. “How are you, Will?”

“I’ve had a tough time with McCormick. He disagreed with me in front of half the security department, yesterday.”

Deanna frowned. “About?”

“We were discussing regulations regarding ship’s security, and he interpreted the regs differently than I did.”

She nodded. “So, not within my purview. I would suppose the captain to be the final word on interpretations of regulations aboard the ship.”

He went still for a long moment, arms crossed on the table in front of him. “I used to be able to talk to you about anything,” he said at last. “What happened?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” To engage in that conversation would mean an argument, she knew. This wasn’t the place to tell him anything he wouldn’t like to hear. She knew he wanted to vent. Her current project was more important.

“I think Alexander happened. I’m hoping it will go back to the way it was, after Kurn gets here and they return to the home world.”

She stared at him in shock. “What?”

“That’s what he said -- I was on the bridge when he contacted us.”

“You spoke to Kurn?” She felt as though her head were about to burst open, with tension. It was bad enough that she had to navigate through how to care for a little Klingon, on top of her duties and having to talk endlessly about the grief of others while she still tried to cope with her own -- now this. “Why didn’t you put him through to me?”

“He didn’t ask for you. He said he was on his way, and that he would be at the starbase when we got there, to pick up Alexander. I didn’t realize you hadn’t already made arrangements with him.”

Deanna grabbed her padd and stood, nearly tipping over her chair. “I have to go.”

“Deanna?”

“What?” It came out with more ire than she’d wanted, and she glared at him.

He looked up at her as if she’d just slapped him. “I thought you would want him to be raised by other Klingons.”

“I want you to do something, Will,” she snapped. “Go ask the computer for information about attachment, in young children. Listen to some of the psychologists who have published on the subject for a few hours. Think about Worf, and how he sent Alexander to his parents, against my advice. I’m supposed to do what’s best for him -- I’m his Soh-chIm. He’s not going anywhere, and there’s nothing anyone can say to change my mind! Before you question this again, why don’t you sit for a while and think about a little boy who so desperately wanted the mother he never knew that he pretended she was still alive, and you tell me what I should be doing about a little boy who asked me whether he can call me his mother!!”

She marched out of Ten Forward, holding the padd as if it were a mek’leth in her right hand -- hurrying, in case he tried to come after her and she might be tempted to hit him with it. 

Once in her office, it took her too long to calm down. She was almost there, almost at peace, when the annunciator went off. She knew her smile was wavering, as the captain came in, and he hesitated before sitting down with her on the long mauve sofa. He stared, with his composed, curious expression that he always had when contemplating what to say in a sensitive situation. She tried -- the words were there, to start another session with a client, a very familiar one. But each time, she closed her mouth again, silently.

Deanna finally shook her head, and her face fell. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid… I just had an intense -- it wasn’t even a conversation. And now I’m completely overwhelmed with -- “ The tears were so immediate the instant she approached it that she became furious with herself, wiping at her eyes with frustrated little stabs of her fingers and then collapsing forward to cover her face with her hands in humiliation.

“I can reschedule,” he said at last, shoving the container of tissues against her thigh.

“Did you know about Kurn?” she blurted. She yanked tissues and mopped frantically.

A pause. “Do you mean Worf’s brother? I know we sent him a notification -- we didn’t get a response, so far as I’m aware.”

“Then you weren’t on the bridge when he called to inform us he was picking up Alexander at the starbase.”

When she peered at him through swollen eyelids and tears, she saw what her own intense emotions blocked -- he was angry, eyes narrowed, and deep in thought. Then he shot her a glance. “You didn’t know, and I didn’t know. Will?”

“He said he thought I had talked to Kurn.”

“I was wondering if Kurn might just let Alexander go. If he knew anything, if Worf told him how many problems there were trying to get Alexander to adhere to Klingon tradition….”

“Worf corresponded with his brother, but it wasn’t often, and I don’t think he told Kurn everything. I had the impression that Worf….” She rolled her eyes, feeling absolutely traitorous. But Worf was dead, and he wanted her to protect Alexander. And she knew what would happen if the conflicted little boy were forced into the regimented and violent culture in which his father had tried for so long to find a place. “Worf was embarrassed that Alexander was so opposed to being traditional. He wouldn’t have told Kurn that.”

“I think Kurn will show up and order Alexander to come with him. As the last member of the House of Mogh, if Kurn doesn’t have his obedience….”

“No,” she said, her lip curling, shaking her head. “Oh, no. I am a member of the House of Mogh -- Worf lodged a proclamation with the High Council, naming me Alexander’s soh-chIm. And he left me his bat’leth. Kurn will be obedient to me.”

Jean-Luc leaned back slightly, startled by her proclamation. “Far be it from me to get in your way, then. But if you do need my help, you know you have it.”

“Thank you.”

“I was wrong,” Jean-Luc said, almost to himself.

“You were?”

He was almost lost in thought for a moment. “There were times that I started to question -- I know that Klingon culture was tremendously important to Worf, and it colored everything he did. It threw him into conflict with his Starfleet career at times. I’m afraid there were actually times that I thought it blinded him, to understanding other cultures, other people.”

“But you were wrong about that -- I know that, but it sounds as though you’ve reached that conclusion independently?”

His eyes shifted to her again, and his smile was warm. “The more I spend time with you and Alexander, the more I realize that he knew you far better than I did, in some respects. He chose a warrior for his son.”

More tears blurred her sight. “In essence. But I think it’s more likely he chose a mother -- it doesn’t matter what species a mother is, if there is a threat to her child, you will need an army of Klingons to defeat her.”

"I don't doubt that, not at all," he said softly. Another pause, while she dabbed her eyes with another round of tissues. "Deanna, are you able to talk to someone? Is there anyone, if you need counseling too?"

"Actually, I do have appointments, via subspace, with someone. When it's possible. Of course there are times that doesn't happen. I spoke to her two days ago. But thank you, for your concern, Captain."

"I'll just be going -- maybe you should take the afternoon off. Go to the holodeck."

"I really don't think that I can immerse myself in a program at the moment. I've been trying to read about adoption laws, and decide whether or not it's in his best interests, or if I'm better leaving things as they are. There's a certain amount of leverage to the current arrangement."

"Well, if you need a break, I suggest running Picard 342-D. It's therapeutic." He rose, tugged at his jacket, and left without further ado.

Deanna canceled the remaining two appointments for the day and started to read again with the door locked and on 'do not disturb'. When her eyes started to hurt, she decided to let curiosity win and headed for the nearest empty holodeck.

When the program started, she found herself in a large white-walled room, with a gray floor. At her right was a tall bucket of rocks, each one just the same size, big enough to wrap her hand around. When she picked one up there was a shimmer of holography in progress, and the wall in front of her became panes of glass, one after the next. 

The first throw bounced off the edge of a pane, but the second went straight through -- she had to aim, and focus, at least for a while. After she'd demolished the first two dozen the computer reset, clearing away broken glass, and she continued until her shoulder began to ache. Then she switched hands. 

The fourth time it reset everything, refilled the bucket of rocks, she dropped the latest rock back into it. Suddenly it all shifted -- now she was on a deck standing next to a lounge chair, and a tall drink sat on a table near it. She sat down and picked up the glass. The sweet-sour liquid made her cough briefly, as it was unexpectedly alcoholic and she didn't make a habit of drinking strong liquors, but a couple of sips gave her a fuzzy sort of buzz. Swinging her legs up, she looked out to sea, and sighed.

"Computer, set an alarm for the end of alpha shift, and suspend all but emergency communications."

Deanna closed her eyes and relaxed into the hazy calm, ignoring the soreness in her shoulders as the buzz softened that too.


	3. The Warrior

The following morning, Deanna got them through breakfast without a single frown, and when Alexander was ready for school, standing there in his favorite blue shirt and his hair neatly combed, she paused, facing him. He noticed her sudden change of demeanor and also came to attention.

“We’ll be at the starbase later today,” she said. “We’ll meet with your uncle. He will want to take you with him.”

Immediately, fear and rage washed through him. She held up a hand, and surprisingly, it halted the meltdown.

“I won’t let him do that, unless you are in agreement. But this will be different -- he’s not human, he hasn’t spent a lot of time with humans, and he won’t even show patience like a human would, unless we meet him as Klingons. He won’t respect me unless I earn his respect. So that’s what I’m going to do. You’re going to help me. You trust me?”

He nodded fervently.

“Who do you think would make a good guardian for you, if I die in battle?”

Alexander froze in terror at the thought. But he recovered gradually, becoming angry for a bit before looking at the floor and actually thinking. She had taught him to stop and think before lashing out, and he had been somewhat successful, especially with adults.

“Dr. Crusher and the captain,” he said at last. It didn’t surprise her. Beverly was gentle with him, affectionate and sympathetic, showing the most interest out of all her friends, in drawing him out and understanding what was going on and what he most liked to do, playing kadis-kot or one of the other children’s games with him.

“Then you can consider it done. Not that I plan to die any time soon -- I will be making you eat the rest of your vegetables for a long time, _tigryonak_. Off we go to school.”

She walked him to the door, and he looked back at her with a little trepidation but marched in to greet the teacher as always. Deanna reversed course toward the lift and as she approached, the doors opened and Will stood in the car. She didn’t hesitate, striding in to turn and face the door as always. “Deck two.”

“Good morning,” Will said as if nothing at all had ever happened between them.

“It is a good day to die,” she tossed off nonchalantly.

He froze -- she sensed the tension in him. “What?”

“If Kurn pushes the issue, I’ll have to chop off his head. I’m not sure I’m tall enough.”

A sigh, long and slow. “Deanna… I thought you changed your mind. I thought you spoke to him, and made arrangements, because you know how important it would be to Worf for him to be raised as a Klingon. You know better than anyone you’re not going to be able to do that.”

“I don’t have to. He can decide when he’s older what he wants to be. He’s FOUR, William, not even old enough to have a real idea of what he wants. Worf understood the complications of being raised outside his culture, and K’Ehleyr set the template for Alexander, not Worf.” She faced him straight on, glaring. “Worf chose ME. He CHOSE me. He didn’t choose YOU.”

“Thanks for clarifying,” he replied dryly. “Worf did talk to me once in a while. He even asked me for advice sometimes. Even about Alexander.”

“And what advice did you give him, oh wise one?”

“Oh for -- stop acting like your degree gives you the right to claim you know everything,” Will exclaimed. “Sometimes stupid line officers without advanced college degrees can have an idea about life, you know?”

“If your advice was so pertinent -- “

It was so fortunate, that she caught herself. Dragging the captain into the middle of this was not a good idea. Mentioning that Worf had found Will’s advice concerning and gone to Jean-Luc would not help anyone.

“He asked me if I thought the two of you were suited to each other. If I had an opinion on whether you would be a good fit.”

“Then you’ll not need any explanation of why Alexander hates you,” she said stiffly.

“Computer, halt turbolift.”

He’d done it just as they reached deck two -- damn. No escape now.

“He asked my opinion. I know damn well he could have chosen to disregard it. If he felt anything for you he would have. He wanted a mother for his son, not a lover, and why would I pass up an opportunity to say something when the chance is offered?”

Deanna thought she might be giving off discernible waves of heat, at this point -- her face and palms felt hot. It took effort to keep her fingers open, not curling into fists. She raised her eyes to glare directly into his. “Because you don’t trust me to say no, to something like that? You don’t trust me to look out for myself? You think your opinion on what’s right for me should have precedence over my own. Thank you, oh my savior, my paladin, my -- “

“Fuck! That isn't what I was doing!”

“Computer, resume. You're completely ignoring what I'm saying, again.”

“Deanna, I was trying to help him. He asked me what I thought, and I told him it was a mismatch! You can’t think it would have worked!”

The doors opened just fifteen seconds after she resumed, and she stepped out in the corridor, noting the captain was waiting at the door of her office as expected, to witness the real point flying by his first officer’s head with loud whistling and fireworks. Damn Will and his tenacity in being entirely too caught up in his own self-righteousness. Of course, the presence of the one officer who outranked them did not register, he was so blinded by anger.

“Stop running off, come on, you can’t just -- “

She whirled, stopping him -- he caught himself in mid-stride and almost stumbled trying not to run into her -- and glaring again. “You should make an appointment. I only allow rage and fury after lunch, when I’m properly hydrated. Send me a reminder and I’ll see when my next opening is. Probably next year, some time -- maybe you noticed there’s been a lot of reasons for people to need my time? In fact, someone is waiting for me, so -- ”

“De -- “

“I HAVE AN APPOINTMENT,” she shouted in his face.

Finally, he raised his eyes, saw the captain, and immediately backed into the lift and snapped out a request for the bridge.

When she arrived at her door, she stood for a moment unclenching her fists, and trying so hard to calm down. The captain waited patiently.

“I’m so sorry,” she managed at great length, wagging her head back and forth miserably.

“In.”

She realized she’d allowed herself to be so upset she forgot that had to be the first one in -- her door was set not to open for anyone but her, if no one was already in the room. As he followed her in, he waited for her to sit, and joined her on the sofa, hands in his lap, sitting a little closer than usual.

“Your assistants are good counselors,” he half-asked. “Which one of them do you think would be better suited to work with me?”

It was too much -- the sense of failure swept over her, and a sob escaped her control, and the humiliation of losing control in front of her commanding officer pushed another after it, and another. She folded in on herself and cried, wishing she could do over the past two months and forget any of this had ever happened. Perhaps she could go back in time, transfer to security and take Worf’s place, and go down in history as a dedicated officer -- instead of being a failure, incapable of managing a relationship with a former lover, being a cool, collected and effective counselor until the captain showed up and everything went to hell, and facing Worf’s brother to retain custody of a child she felt inadequate to parent.

It was worse when Jean-Luc started to rub her back. A shock ran through her, a quiver started in her gut, and she was torn between throwing herself against him like Alexander did to her in the middle of a grief-induced fit of tears, or running for her life and stealing a shuttle.

“I only meant that you appear to need a friend more than I need a counselor.” His soft explanation launched another shock wave through her body.

“What would give you that idea?” She sounded congested and depressed -- what a mess she had made of this. Sitting up, she angrily snatched the tissues off the oval table in front of them and started to attempt repairs. Nothing for it -- she blew her nose. It was the only chance of not spending the rest of the conversation sounding like she had a head cold.

Jean-Luc had pulled away, and sat watching her calmly. She decided it was better, feeling so much misery that her empathy was clouded and muddled. She didn’t want to know if there was any pity behind that inscrutable expression.

“Sarah,” she said sadly. “I think she would suit you better than Mike. And Will has an appointment with Mike, and I think the distribution of pips between the two will better suit confidentiality and sanity of my counselors. Sarah would have a difficult time with Will.”

“So I’m easy, now?”

“I should know better than to think out loud in here,” she exclaimed. “How worthless I’m being.”

He went quiet again -- he’d intended a self-deprecating joke to lighten the mood, but there was no way for her to laugh as he’d intended. But he didn’t excuse himself to leave, and it was obvious she wasn’t going to get rid of him by waiting for him to feel uncomfortable and escape.

Deanna took a deep breath and sat up straighter, and went through just what she’d taught him to do before -- the relaxation techniques only worked if one applied them, and it was all she was capable of at the moment. Closing her eyes helped. She thought about the holodeck program he’d suggested, and smiled, replacing all the windows in her mental simulation with pictures of Will and imagining bigger rocks.

When she had settled the pit of demons in her stomach and recovered from the urge to cry, she looked at him again -- he hadn’t moved an inch. “Are you sure you want to switch? We could reschedule to tomorrow morning. I can tell the computer to be sure to give me an empty turbolift.”

“No, I think I would have ended up doing it anyway. I think it’s been heading that direction for a while. I’m a little too comfortable now -- it’s not the same any more. I’d rather keep the friendship than that part of us.”

She nodded, thinking about it from that angle. “All right. I’ll let Sarah know she should kick someone off her schedule. I’ll have to take on Giles, most likely, in exchange.”

“You mean Green Giles? Good god, what have I done to you?” The lieutenant had a bad case of space sickness, entirely psychosomatic, and it was an ongoing issue -- he was determined to work on a starship, yet the nausea could be most inconvenient when sickbay was busy. And he had been known to vomit in therapy sessions as well. He was the bane of the maintenance staff.

“It’s not a big deal. He’s no Reginald Barclay -- I’m better at teaching biofeedback techniques than Sarah, anyway.” She would likely add hypnosis into the mix, as well. Sarah had no training in that method.

“So since we’re here, and I set aside the time anyway, if you want to talk I’m willing to listen.”

It almost set her off again. She’d recovered enough that his sympathy and his affection for her were obvious. Wrapping her arms across her stomach as if it hurt, she focused on breathing, rather than giving in to the impulse to cry.

“You aren’t talking to any of us,” he went on after a few moments. “Beverly spends half of breakfast fussing about it. Data asked me if you were all right, he hasn’t seen you much, other than the time you spent losing a chess game to him in Ten Forward the other night. Geordi -- “

“Was there a meeting?” She regretted it immediately. He didn’t deserve such petulance.

“Not at all. They catch me at odd moments, after we’ve dealt with something. It’s obvious that your usual support system is not in operation so something has to change. You can’t keep this up.”

“Usual support system,” she echoed.

Jean-Luc waited patiently, finally resorting to prompting her. “What happened between you and Will?”

The tissue container left her hand before she realized she’d thrown it -- it shot across the office, knocked its twin from the edge of her desk, and took out a small vase of roses on its way into her empty desk chair. Jean-Luc leaned and plucked the vase from the nearby table and held it out to her.

A few jagged guffaws emerged, and she fell back in a slump on the couch. She watched him put the flowers down again. “I thought you didn’t want to be involved in personal -- “

“Deanna, stop dodging the question.”

“How much information do you really want? Do you really want to know the childish, vindictive and idiotic side of your first officer and friend? Because the number one reason I am talking to a psychologist half across the quadrant is knowing that any confidant on this vessel is going to have a completely different opinion of one of their commanding officers, and encourage me to transfer somewhere else. My counselor has already started saying just that, nearly every time I talk to her.”

Jean-Luc was already angry -- this wasn’t going to go anywhere good, she thought, her eyes starting to ache more. “The truth has begun to be obvious whether you tell me or not. I’m not going to let him shout at my officers in lifts.”

“I’ve tried, so hard, to get him to stop, but he isn’t hearing me,” she began. “All the anger is secondary -- he’s hurt. He wanted me to give him another chance. I knew, when he started to feel, I knew and I kept responding in all kinds of discouraging overt ways, walking away when he approached while he felt that way. He finally asked to see me to talk and I went to tell him to not even start. I went to tell him I'd never want to talk about it again, to please stop trying, and the minute I walked in he had this -- ring, and I couldn’t even say anything.” The tears started midway through, and the gesturing with her hands, and the anger that she was even saying anything at all -- to him, of all people. To the one person aboard who could react in ways that could be detrimental to Will’s career.

And yet, she trusted Jean-Luc wouldn’t do that, he would be fair, professional, regardless of what she said. He always approached things rationally.

“I just stared at him, and he was smiling, and I left him standing there. I couldn’t believe it. I got to the lift and realized what I was doing, and turned back -- he was sitting there in his quarters looking miserable, and just had to do it -- I had to apologize because I didn’t feel that way at all, but I loved my friend, the friend that he was, and I wanted to rescue that friendship. Such a stupid thing for me to do. I told him he had shocked me speechless -- I started to explain that I cared about him, but before I could finish he -- “

Rather than talk about being soundly kissed and then struggling then pushing Will away, she paused to recover herself. She went on in a less anxious fashion.

“I had to pry his arms away. I had to shout at him, to get him to pay attention, that I didn’t want any of it. He wasn’t oblivious to my attempts to dissuade him, before. He said he knew I was trying to stick to the original plan. Keep everything professional. He told me he didn’t want to do that any more. And I told him that I did. I’ve told him, repeatedly, since then, like a mantra. Every time he says he wants to talk to me. Every time he says it, I say the same thing, word for word.”

“Why does he keep trying?” Jean-Luc sounded disgusted. She couldn’t tell how he felt directly, any more, her own frustration and rage obscured it. But the pit of her stomach agreed with him.

“I fell for him so hard, when I was young, and I want to go back in time and strangle myself for it. There was a moment when he came aboard that first time, when I thought about immediately transferring -- when he insisted that we remain professionals, only, and that it was best for both of us. It was like he left me all over again. I hoped we could fix things, prior to that, but meeting him and hearing him say that killed it. Over time I focused on being his friend, and it worked, so well. The past year has been different. He started to look at me again. I don’t understand! I don’t know how else to tell him -- I don’t know why he can’t hear me when I tell him no, unless he thinks he can change my mind. Persuade me somehow. Maybe he thinks I care, and I’m afraid? All I know is that the longer he keeps doing this the less I care about him, and this is the case in point -- telling you risks his friendship with you. He’s going to be furious with me, if he finds out. And I can’t bring myself to care any more.”

Jean-Luc had settled into a simmering, quiet anger that worried her. He had a distant expression, his eyes lidded, and an unhappy slant to his lips. Then he had an idea -- his head came up slightly.

“Call him in here.”

Fear must have radiated from her -- he reached over and took her hand, and her stomach flipped over. He smiled at her.

“Trust me,” he said.

Deanna nodded, took another few moments to breathe, and managed to sound calm, summoning Will. She sat up and tried to compose herself further, folding her hands on her knee and settling into a more upright posture. Jean-Luc moved away, leaving a large enough gap between them that she realized he meant for Will to sit between them.

Will came into the room and glanced back and forth. “Sir?”

“Have a seat,” Jean-Luc said, sounding just as he always did.

So Will stepped over the table, pivoted, and dropped right between them. “Not our usual arrangement for a briefing. What’s up?”

“I wanted to discuss a few things -- concerns, really. I was talking to the counselor about guilt, you see. It’s been weighing on my mind, that you haven’t gotten a promotion. I was feeling regret that I hadn’t given Worf a chance -- and it’s obvious that it wasn’t just Worf. You deserve a chance at your own command.”

Will was surprised -- he glanced at Deanna with wide eyes, and turned back to the captain with less tension in his posture. “Thank you, sir,” he exclaimed. “But -- I haven’t heard anything, about a ship.”

“I have it on good authority that they’ll be needing new captains soon. I’ll put in a good word for you.”

Will grinned, and thanked him again. He turned to Deanna -- the grin wavered, but he said, “Guess you’ll have a new first officer to break in. Unless you’ll consider coming with me?”

Deanna smiled, hoping it wasn’t too much of a smirk. “I don’t believe I will do that, but thank you.”

Jean-Luc stepped in before Will could continue to address her. “Perhaps you’ll find yourself a first officer before you go -- I’ll request that you not take Data with you, I’m already offering him your old position.”

“I’m not sure he would go anyway. Not to sound like I’m in a hurry, but it would make it easier to plan -- do you have an idea of a timetable?”

“I’ll get back to you on that one, I have a few calls to make.”

“Congratulations, Will,” Deanna managed smoothly.

Jean-Luc almost got caught smirking. Will turned back to look at him, and he sobered slightly. “Status?”

“We’ll be in orbit around the starbase within the hour. Haven’t heard from the Klingons, though.”

“Thank you, Number One. See you on the bridge shortly.”

The first officer rose with a nod to Deanna and left the room.

“Captain,” she said, scolding.

“It all had the benefit of being true. Don’t look at me like that.”

“I’m not sure if I should hug you or scold you. I might manage both. I didn’t want you to do anything!”

He sighed, managing to look insulted. “This is my ship, and I’ll thank you to let me run it as I please.”

But he was smug as hell, and happy, and the last hour’s events left her light-headed and trying to process it all. Deanna found herself shaking her head again, looking at the floor, as she was having difficulty looking at him, lounging in the corner with his arms along the back cushion like he was feeling right at home.

It occurred to her to wonder if Will would take Kathy with him. The thought almost lobbed a torpedo on her mood. She fought it back and hid it by going to her desk, to check the time and the next name on her schedule.

Or, she thought she had.

“What’s wrong?”

Deanna came back from behind the desk, slowly. “I didn’t tell you everything, but it’s a moot point now. It’s nothing, really.”

“Every time I have ever uttered those words you kicked my ass until I told you what it was, and you were always right to do it.”

“This is not likely to be one of those times where it will be of any use to anyone.”

He gave her the raised eyebrows -- daring her.

“You’re going to regret it.”

“Oh, what’s one more?”

“I was just wondering if he might be taking the woman with him.”

That was enough to bring him off the couch. He crossed his arms and waited for the rest of it. More anger set in, but he waited.

“He doesn’t feel much for her, and the unfeelings are mutual. I’m pretty sure she’s his way of being passive aggressive, since he knows full well I can tell when they’re fucking -- I’m past caring, really, she’s clearly not suffering for it but it angers me that he’s trying to use her to get to me that way.”

Jean-Luc took another step, and now he was close enough that their sleeves brushed against each other. Putting his arm around her was a slow, deliberate maneuver on his part, and she stood rigid for a few seconds of disbelief.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

She let herself lean on him for a few moments, accepting the comfort, and he let go when she started to move away from him. “Thank you for listening.”

“Now, where have I heard that before?”

She couldn’t help grinning. He was so happy with himself, teasing her this way. “I don’t think anyone would believe me, if I let slip that you got me to tell you everything. Thank you, for being a good friend. I have a meeting now -- you’re about to let our session run overtime.”

“Well, I hate to cut a session short when there’s so much work to be done.”

“You’re making me suspect this was motivated by vengeance,” she teased in return.

The amused expression faded, until he was gazing at her with a softness in his eyes she didn’t think she had ever seen before. With a shake of his head, he turned and left the office.

Deanna put her hands over her mouth and held her breath, until she had to let it go.

“Oh, hell,” she whispered to herself.

\---------------------

Jean-Luc was the last to arrive in the transporter room. Beverly had come in with Data, and Alexander was clinging to Deanna. The captain smiled at Alexander and turned to step up on the platform, and everyone moved to follow.

It gave Deanna very little time to be nervous about Jean-Luc and the morning’s events, and by the time they materialized on the starbase, all she could think about was confronting Kurn, and she had little time for that. Beverly walked on her right, and Alexander hung on her left arm, as they walked the corridor behind the captain with Data following.

They entered a large conference room, sparsely decorated in red tones, with a table and eight chairs. Kurn turned from a bored study of a painting of a nebula at the far end of the room, and slowly came forward. He studied them with hard eyes.

“Captain,” he acknowledged, with a veneer of politeness, his gaze passing over them to fall on Alexander’s face. As she remembered, he regarded humans with disdain, thinly veiled. Probably everyone else, too -- unlike Worf, he had been raised by Klingons, and most of them would have that attitude by default.

“This is your uncle, Kurn,” Deanna said, looking down at Alexander. “You will speak with him. If he is not acceptable, you will tell me.”

Alexander was all nerves stepping away from her, but he did so, glaring up at the Klingon with all the fury he could muster while wanting to run for the nearest door. “I am Alexander Rozhenko, son of Worf.”

Kurn was quick to recover from the shock of her words. She smiled as if contemplating a favorable outcome. She felt Beverly at her back, standing stiffly, shocked, and Jean-Luc stood with crossed arms off to her right, being quiet. Data was out of her field of vision.

Alexander took another few steps and crossed his arms. She’d suggested doing an impression of his father -- it was a fair imitation.

“I am Kurn,” he said, as amiable as she’d ever heard him. “You will come with me.”

“Why?” Alexander exclaimed.

Kurn started to glare. Deanna stepped forward behind the boy, and at the sound of her quiet footsteps he braced himself and stuck out his chest a little more.

“Why should I go with you?” He wasn’t as nervous any more, and the belligerence started to show through.

“Your father was my brother. It is my responsibility -- “

“My father gave me a soh-chIm. You are only here for her to decide if you are fit to spend time with me.”

Deanna sensed the fury and with all the focus and coordination she’d learned in Worf’s classes she brought up the dk’tahg out of the folds of her dress and hurled it down over Alexander’s head. It lodged point first into the floor with a dull thunk between Kurn’s hideous armored boots and Alexander’s shoes.

Alexander flinched, but only a little bit. Kurn was too startled by the act to notice. He stared into her eyes for the first time, and she glared back, unmoving, letting her anger burn in her eyes.

“You do not insult Worf,” she exclaimed at last. “You do not take the boy.”

His ire rose and fell. He must have known about Worf’s wishes, as he begrudgingly took his hand from the handle of the mek’leth at his belt. “You will allow me to see the boy,” he said, as close to asking as she could expect him to get.

She made a show of studying him through narrowed eyes. “You may speak with him if you wish. If all goes well, we can make an arrangement.” She held out her hand over Alexander’s left shoulder, and he used both hands to pull the knife out -- he made it look harder than it really was, the little ham -- and turned to place the hilt in her hand. She backed a few steps, and yanked out a chair to sit, placing the dk’tahg on the table. The captain and the doctor followed her example. She’d shocked Beverly all over again, but Jean-Luc had a grim sort of appreciation for the show. Data merely waited, standing erect, his hands behind his back.

Deanna paid close attention as Kurn minded his manners -- he obviously knew something about the difference between Alexander and a boy raised on the home world. He was gruff, but almost polite compared to his manner toward the crew of the _Enterprise_ when he had come aboard as part of the exchange program. He spoke of his home, his mate, and his son. He asked a few questions about school, which Alexander answered vaguely as Deanna had suggested. Alexander was still nervous by the end of the meeting, which lasted almost half an hour, but Kurn stood up from the chair and gave him a nod at last. Alexander came to her, and stopped himself short of flying into her arms.

“My uncle would like to know if we can come to the home world, in the next six months, to meet my cousins,” Alexander said.

She turned to look across the table, and the captain gave the nod. “We can arrange it, _tigryonak_.”

Kurn cocked his head. “Tig…”

Alexander looked back at him. “It means little tiger.”

“Tiger,” Kurn repeated.

“A large predator, on Earth. One of the largest. A cat,” Alexander said. He loved zoology. “It hunts large animals, alone.”

Kurn smiled -- it was a good sign, Deanna decided, that there was a spark of fondness for the boy, already. She was proud to see that Alexander did as she had instructed and didn’t try to hug or touch Kurn until the warrior offered a hand, and then he gripped wrists in the manner of two warriors, impressing the only uncle he had with the gesture.

He started to leave, but hesitated to stare at Deanna again. “You are Deanna... Troi,” he said, as if having difficulty recalling, though he remembered perfectly well. “The Betazoid.”

She gave him a cool gaze of disdain, and picked up the dk’tahg idly in her fingers, balancing it on the point on the table. “Yes.”

“When I reach the home world, I will contact you, and we will make an arrangement.”

“Yes.”

He gave her another look of appraisal, appreciation, and strode from the room. The silence stretched for a few minutes after the door closed behind him, and then Alexander launched himself into her lap, giggling. She dropped the knife on the table to catch him.

“You are a good Klingon,” he shouted, laughing.

“You are a good Klingon,” she said as she hugged the wriggling little boy. “My little tiger.”

“I think that you are confused, Alexander,” Data said. By this time the android understood exactly what they meant, but it had become his favorite role, the straight man. “Counselor Troi is not a Klingon.”

“No, she’s a _good_ Klingon,” he said over her shoulder at Data.

“I’ll say,” Beverly exclaimed. She stood and crossed her arms, and smiled across the table at them. “I think my heart stopped for about half an hour! Does this mean we’re free to go find some ice cream?”

“Can we?”

Deanna mock-frowned. “Do Klingons even like ice cream without gagh in it?”

Alexander made a disgusted face. “I hate gagh! Maybe we should be Betazoids now.”

“If you insist. Then it will be chocolate ice cream.”

“Perhaps we should replicate it here,” Jean-Luc put in. No doubt wanting to linger, to allow Kurn plenty of time to leave the station.

Alexander asked questions about the home world, now that it seemed likely that they would see it, and Jean-Luc was actually able to answer a lot of them. And then he surprised Deanna, and Beverly, by starting to talk about the time he had been Worf’s cha’Dich, because Kurn had been injured and could no longer do it himself. They all ate chocolate ice cream around the end of the table, while Data sat with them companionably, providing random Klingon facts.

Jean-Luc had them beamed back to the ship directly from the conference room he’d arranged, rather than returning to the transporter room on the station, and dismissed Data. Beverly gave Deanna a look that said they would talk soon as she followed the android out.

Jean-Luc walked with them all the way back to their quarters, still chatting with Alexander about Klingon custom, the logical digression from the conversation on the station. Once they were in the living room, Alexander glanced at the captain, looked Deanna in the eye solemnly, and marched into his room without a word.

Jean-Luc watched him go, shocked.

“Thank you, for your help,” she said.

“You hardly needed any. That was pitch-perfect -- you didn’t even have to spit curses at him.” His proud, subdued smile elicited one from her. “He did very well. You coached him?”

“I told him to imagine how his father would act. I ran him through a scenario -- I guessed fairly close to what Kurn actually said, in fact. I expected Kurn to be cautious. This isn’t Qo’nos, after all.”

Jean-Luc put his hands on his hips. An unusual stance for him, but he was thinking about something and unsure of it.

“Did you find a posting for Will?”

“I did, actually. Admiral Ross gave me a list of vessels. I recommended Will to an extended tour of duty toward the Beta Quadrant. I suggested that his extensive experience in first contact and battle situations lended itself well to a ten year mission, and the admiral concurred.” Jean-Luc edged into smugness, again. “The only drawback for Will is that he needs to leave tomorrow, get himself all the way back to Earth to pick up his fourth pip and get things in order -- the vessel launches in two months.”

“I’ll let Beverly throw the farewell party. I’m exhausted. After I make dinner for Alexander, I’m going to bed early. Please give Will my regards and let him know I wish him well?”

“Gladly.” Jean-Luc hesitated, crossing his arms, and she sensed the deliberation. “I saw that you had requested several days of leave.”

“I promised Alexander we would visit with my mother. We’re supposed to meet on Lavonia, one day from now. I found two lieutenants who don't mind traveling with us and taking their own leave there as well, if you’ll grant the permission to take one of the shuttles.”

“Of course. Give my regards to your mother.” He paused, again. “I have an appointment with Counselor Cameron, tomorrow.”

“Good. I’ll miss working with you, but I know you’re in good hands. I’ve already warned her not to expect you to be very cooperative. That way she will feel successful when you turn out to be a complete gentleman, so you'll both be starting out with a positive experience.”

He knew she was teasing, but his smile dwindled. Just when she thought he would turn to go, he said, “I’ll miss you. While you are gone.”

Deanna looked away, debating, thinking, and after a moment of projecting how the next week or so would go, she met his gaze again. “You could always take a few days off and come with us, you know. Despite the fact that Alexander will decide I’m choosing a mate -- he’s been watching everyone for signs of that, anticipating it. I’ve been lectured that it is improper for me to choose a new mate until mourning is past -- I keep reminding myself he’s just a precocious four year old Klingon, nothing new there.”

He went through a moment of surprise, then he took another moment to consider. “Lavonia has some famous ruins -- “

“Do you know the location of every ruin and dig in the quadrant?”

“In the galaxy.” The puckish grin he rarely indulged made an appearance.

“As long as you get back by curfew, don’t crash any shuttles, don’t get yourself shot, and don’t get caught up in another smuggling ring. And most of all, no Borg, no time travel, no stupid anomalies that open into alternate universes -- ”

“Sometimes you are no fun at all,” he huffed.

“Sometimes, you sound like my mother,” she said. “Are you hungry? I didn’t eat lunch.”

“Neither did I, come to think of it. And it’s almost dinner time.”

Deanna turned to the replicator. “You can stop listening and get out here, little man.”

The door slid open and Alexander stomped out, embarrassed, gritting his teeth. “Not fair,” he exclaimed.

“No good comes of eavesdropping. It’s not polite, and you know better -- no spaghetti tonight, you get to have salad, like me.”

“Noooo, can’t I have something else?”

“Whining will get you even less -- a carrot, maybe. Go sit down without complaining and I’ll make it a chef’s salad, with plenty of meat.”

He wrinkled his nose, but dragged his feet to the table and slumped in a chair with crossed arms. When Jean-Luc got a salad as well, Alexander lost a little of the attitude.

Deanna thought they were in the clear, as conversation throughout dinner was about leave -- things they would be able to do on Lavonia. Alexander was excited about the possibility of swimming in a real ocean, and seeing a zoo. He asked if there were mud baths and whether Lwaxana would go with them to the zoo. As she carried empty plates back to be recycled, the little sneak chose that moment to ambush them.

“Are you going to marry Mom?”

She almost dropped the stack of dishes, managing to get them into the slot before then. Then she leaned forward and pressed her forehead against the wall, trying not to laugh.

“I don’t know,” Jean-Luc said, not even flinching or trying to escape the question. Well, she had warned him. Thankfully. “I’ve never thought about getting married.”

That was a lie, but she decided he could get away with it. “Do you have homework?” She returned to the table to find the boy looking up at her with innocent eyes. “Don’t do that again.”

“What?” He spread his hands, fighting a smile.

“Finish your homework, then it’s bed time. It’s been a hard day for everyone.”

Uncertainty flickered in his eyes. She had, she realized, sounded harder than usual. Sighing, she sat in her chair and touched his hair. “I told you that I would tell you, if I ever decided to find a mate. I told you that so you would not have to ask everyone who comes through the door -- it’s an embarrassing question for some people. Please don’t do it again. You’re lucky the captain is used to embarrassing questions.”

Alexander shrugged and shrunk in on himself a little. “I’m sorry, Captain,” he mumbled.

“I wasn’t offended, Alexander.”

“You did so well today, _tigryonak_. I am proud of you. But you’re tired, and I’m very tired, and so go finish that little bit of math, take a shower, and get ready for bed. All right?”

He held up his arms, and she gave him a brief hug before he slipped off the chair and ran to his room.

“In all the excitement today I forgot to tell you,” she began, turning, and stopped when she saw the pensive look on his face. “Jean-Luc?”

“I suppose I’m that tired, as well. Sorry. You were saying?”

“I’m going to ask Beverly as well. Would you consent to being his godparent?”

Unexpectedly, he smiled happily. “I would be honored. But… does it have to be Beverly?”

“I’m not going to tell her you said that. Unless I need leverage.”

“I’m just not sure we’re on the same page, so far as parenting goes,” he exclaimed. He rose from the table and gave her an odd, speculative look. “You’ll let me know when we’re departing?”

“Of course. Good night.”

He headed for the door. “Perhaps we’ll find a sailboat, while we’re there. Since we were going to do that anyway.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I couldn't find a way of redeeming Will, after all. Oh, well. Perhaps another story.
> 
> Yes, indeed, that kid who looked at least seven years old was actually FOUR, if you look at the dates. Alexander was a victim of Soap Opera Aging Syndrome -- kids who were born yesterday are suddenly walking and talking a week later, because it's easier to direct kids with language skills than employ babies. We'll chalk it up to Klingons needing to be able to defend themselves the minute they drop out of the womb, I guess. I'm compromising with canon in making him less able to handle stress and having meltdowns, while being precocious as anything.


	4. The Loner

“There you are,” Beverly exclaimed, coming to the tiny table in the corner where Deanna sat nibbling and poking a salad with her fork. “It’s a little quieter back here, isn’t it?”

The front half of the shuttle was a little crowded. Alexander was exchanging puns and jokes with Lieutenant Garvey, laughing and kicking his feet and bouncing in his seat, while the captain pretended to read a book and Lieutenant Morris piloted. 

“I guess I’m not as hungry as I thought. But yes, it is, and I have a bit of headache coming on.”

Beverly sat and put a hand on Deanna’s shoulder, smiling warmly, her eyes sparkling. She was wearing her blue lab robe and uniform, as if she’d just walked out of sickbay. Essentially she had -- the last minute decision to attend the medical conference she’d discovered on Lavonia meant she hadn’t even packed a bag, but she’d decided to just buy clothes when she got there, she said. Deanna suspected it was an excuse to corner her.

“You’ve been under a lot of stress. I don’t think I’ve even seen you alone, in the past two months -- it’s always been with Alexander. And don’t even think I haven’t noticed the increase in sickbay visits for analgesics and the tired expression that’s been part of your uniform.”

“Two losses, an increase in counseling requests.”

Beverly’s perfectly-shaped red lips thinned into a disapproving line. “And Will being a complete ass? You weren’t there to see him off this morning. He’s been sullen for weeks. Hardly cracking a joke, and a total grumpy gus. You know it’s bad when Jean-Luc loses his temper and snaps at him.”

Deanna frowned at her friend in dismay.

“You weren’t in that briefing -- I think it was one of the times Alexander was acting up and you had to excuse yourself, to go down to the school. Jean-Luc asked if Will wanted to take a break, in that lofty, captainly disdainful way he has when it’s completely obvious someone is out of line.”

“He’s gone. Can we have a nice time on leave without thinking about him?”

“Okay,” Beverly said uncertainly. “After you tell me what happened.”

Deanna hated her complete inability to even appear unaffected. She shoved the bowl away and settled back in the chair, and took a long breath. “A couple of months ago I said no, when he proposed, and he’s spent weeks trying to corner me to ‘talk.’ Meanwhile, because I refused to talk about it, he found a fuckbuddy in operations and started carrying on with her - it’s beyond me how anyone could come up with justifications for vindictively fucking to get on the nerves of the empath on board, but timing is everything, they were at it too early in the evening too consistently for it to be coincidence -- I can sleep through most things, if I meditate myself to sleep. He knows that.”

Beverly gaped at her, as she took the bowl and fork away and returned from the replicator with ice cream. Truthfully, she was getting tired of constant ice cream fixes, but Alexander had the child’s love for the same short list of foods, every day, for weeks. At the moment, it was the easiest way to ingest a bunch of chocolate. She’d gone heavy on the fudge.

“Why didn’t you say anything? I would have neutered him and shipped his testicles to the Ferengi consortium.”

Deanna laughed -- it was perfectly timed, and she started to regret that she hadn’t -- of course, Will hadn’t recovered and apologized and restored normalcy, and she’d had no way of knowing he would be so bitter for so long. She had done her best to ignore him, actually, to focus entirely on Alexander, who’d needed so much at first. Perhaps that had been the reason, now that she thought about it. She’d focused on the boy, and showed no sign of concern or interest in patching things up. 

Beverly leaned, pulled her into an affectionate, comforting embrace for a minute. As she pulled away she patted Deanna’s arm, and gave her a serious, chiding look. “You’ve been torn between four year olds, no wonder you’re tired. I hope you find some time to yourself?”

“Actually, I’m going to take a full thirty-two hours and stay at the Taronga Resort, alone. That’s why I asked you for the inhibitor. I’m going to just sleep, eat, and lounge around the pool, sunbathe, ignore people completely, let those burly, scantily-clad waiters bring me tall cold drinks and the burly, scantily-clad masseuse turn me into a limp, happy woman.”

Beverly started to grin at ‘scantily-clad.’ “I’m starting to rethink my own plans, now. That sounds fantastic.”

Deanna sighed. “Mother’s so happy to have a grandchild, and happier that it’s Alexander, despite the circumstances. She was overjoyed at the opportunity to have him. We’re going to go to the zoo when I rejoin them, and then I was going to take him skydiving.”

At that Beverly gave her the motherly look of scolding. “He’s too young for that, Dee!”

“He’s a Klingon child and he’s going tandem -- I went when I was eight.” 

“I’m starting to revise my guess at what your childhood was like,” Beverly exclaimed. “Here I pictured you all being telepathic around the dinner table.”

“We did that too. My uncle was a commercial pilot -- he flew one of the transorbital shuttles for half his life.”

The door opened again, and Alexander flew in at a run. He was beside himself with excitement, racing around the little room, bounced to a stop at her side, and went wide-eyed at what was left of her ice cream. She took up a spoonful and dished it into his mouth. He leaned on her in an imitation of a hug and ran back out into the other room again.

“You’re doing so well with him,” Beverly murmured.

“For now.” At the questioning look from the doctor, she continued. “Children do this. Foster children will go through a honeymoon period, of good behavior -- with him, it’s fueled by fears that he’ll be sent away again. He was too young when Worf sent him off to Earth. Losing his mother, being sent away by his father, and then losing his father -- he’s been traumatized repeatedly. It’s only a matter of time before that starts to manifest itself. Not to mention his mostly-Klingon genome. As he grows larger it may become a serious problem. I’m doing my best to fortify the bond we already had, from working with him so much as a counselor. I need any advantage I can find.”

“You’ll need help,” Beverly said. “And you know we’ll all be there for you.”

Deanna tried to smile, looked down at the puddle of melting ice cream, chased a few chocolate shavings around with the spoon. “And I appreciate that.”

“Why are you crying?”

“Just… tired. Thankful. Still feeling overwhelmed. I am so glad we can take some time off.”

Alexander’s laughter rang through the shuttle, and they could hear Jean-Luc and the lieutenants joining him -- something had happened. Beverly glanced out the open door and smiled. “Jean-Luc seems to be making a real effort, with Alexander. I’m glad to see it. I know it was harder on him than it appeared, losing Worf that way. I hope he’s in counseling.”

Beverly was technically her supervisor, and could access records. Obviously she hadn’t, though. “He’s seeing Sarah.”

That got her a startled stare. Beverly leaned in a little, seemed on the verge of asking, and remarkably, didn’t. She contemplated -- Deanna sensed the uncertainty and a little frustration. Lots of curiosity. 

“Is everything all right, between you and him?” she asked at last.

“Oh -- he decided to switch, it’s fine,” Deanna said. “I think it’s just that we’ve all become close friends, and after Worf -- he’s been spending a little more time, trying to help with Alexander, like you all have. It’s hard to be a counselor aboard a ship and manage boundaries at the best of times, once you’re close friends with someone, it’s impossible to do effective therapy. I think he’s doing all right with Sarah. She isn’t going to tell me what they talk about, but she said she believes it’ll work out fine.”

“That’s a little disappointing. You got to a place where you worked so well with him. You’ve helped him through some terrible trauma.”

“Well, I’m hoping for no more terrible traumas. But I’m sure Sarah would be capable enough. And he’s loosened up a lot, about personal relationships, and we all know that friends are also a support in such situations. We’ll be there for him, too.”

Beverly’s bright blue eyes focused on her face, then, and suspicion crept in. 

“Beverly?” Deanna prompted quietly. Alexander was loudly telling Jean-Luc the joke he’d learned from Bo, something about a chicken and a library. 

“Is there more to it than that?” Beverly asked, so quietly that Garvey’s laughter almost drowned it out.

Deanna gave her a scolding glance and went to recycle her bowl. When she returned and sat again, Beverly was staring dubiously. “What?”

“There is. Something’s going on.”

“Beverly.”

“Oh, don’t you ‘Beverly’ me -- you are my best friends, I have breakfast with him, neither one of you gets to hide something for long. I knew something was up with Will the day after it happened. You show everything in your face. I’m sure you have a great game face, in counseling, but I’m not one of your clients.”

“And I appreciate that you rarely say anything and wait for me to talk about it when I’m ready,” Deanna said with the faint scold behind her words. 

“All right. But I’ll never let you live it down, when I’m right.”

“What would be new about that?” Deanna rose to rejoin the rest of their traveling companions. She gave Alexander a smile as she sat in the empty chair at sensors -- the boy leaned on the arm of Jean-Luc’s chair, pointing at the console in front of him, guessing what things were. He was a chatterbox when he was this excited. 

What was impressing her more than all the time Jean-Luc spent telling the little Klingon what things were, was his state of being -- he still experienced moments of discomfort, but the old Captain Picard who tolerated no nonsense and wasted no time in idle chatter was gone. He was quite tolerant of all the hyperactivity and nonsense of the son of Worf. How much of that was because of Worf, or because he wanted to help her, was the question. She didn’t think it was out of any deep affection for the boy, though there was some feeling there. 

She turned and glanced out the viewport on her left. Just six more hours, and they would be landing. And then Alexander would be off with her mother for a whirlwind of too many sweets and not enough sleep, and Beverly off to her conference, and Jean-Luc off to dig around talking artifacts with archaeologists. And she would be able to give herself inhibitor and spend blissful hours in complete silence.

There was still a suspicion that it wouldn’t be so simple. But she hoped, so much.

\---------------------

The resort was perfect. There was a restaurant-bar complex, with a large pool area, dance floor, and nightly live music. Deanna’s room was on the far side facing a beach -- opening the wide double doors and taking a few steps down the patio had her on the sand, with the waves just a short run away. The quiet was deafening -- at the moment no one was around. So she left her single bag on the bed, pulled the simple dress over her head, dropped her underwear as she walked. The doors slid silently apart as she approached. Flinging the band to one side and shaking out her hair, she stepped naked into the sunshine and enjoyed the caress of the cool breeze. 

She ran, waded out a ways, and dove. There was nothing like water -- the sensations of sliding through it, being enveloped by it. She moved through the waves into the deeper water swiftly and floated on her back, staring at wispy white clouds in the deep blue sky. 

After an hour of floating and swimming, she returned to her patio, squeezing water out of her thick hair before coming inside. A shower and she dug out the dress she’d packed for this -- shimmering black, clings to the contours, the hemline slanting from thigh to calf and revealing of her left leg. The small tattoo on her left thigh -- a Betazoid symbol for freedom, in black ink -- was visible through the dusky hose she slipped on. She tightened the front across her chest, above her breasts, and spun to look over her shoulders -- the back of the strapless dress dipped low, into the small of her back. She added a shining black choker and brushed out her hair into a cape of curls that hung to her shoulder blades. A burgundy lipstick, a sheen of the gray eye shadow, and last but not least, one hypo of psylosynine inhibitor. It would last for ten hours, more than enough time to dance, dine, and retreat to her room, alone, to meditate. No research, no mission, no appointments, no one to clutter her mental landscape with their unpredictable, uncontrollable emotions. 

The evenings on Lavonia were long, and it was nearly dinner time. She strode through the complex toward the restaurant ignoring the hell out of everyone she passed, enjoying the complete absence of a sense of anyone leering or admiring, or just picking up all the feelings they were having about the situation they were in, the people they were with, the job stress, the grief, the anger -- absolutely nothing infringed on her now. 

The pool was busy with people. She strolled around the cobbled pavement into the open air restaurant, settled at a small table, and ordered from an attractive waiter wearing nothing but a short apron. And when her drink arrived, she sipped, and looked up, and there was a man -- she put down the daiquiri and stared at him. 

“I don’t suppose you’re looking for company?” he said, timidly. The icy response she had been formulating quickly evaporated.

“I’m not. But thank you. I really came to enjoy the resort by myself.”

He smiled -- the strange clothing, trousers with a coating of dust, a shirt undone at the neck, a battered brimmed hat in one hand, and the general dishevelment were hallmarks of someone who really didn’t think about what he was wearing, more what he was doing. “Okay. Sorry to bother you. It’s just not often one sees a woman so beautiful sitting alone like this -- it felt like an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. Enjoy your holiday.” He strode off, and she watched him go, weaving through tables, out from under the restaurant’s canopy to a large table set up on a patio -- surrounded by people wearing similar clothing. 

And then a familiar laugh rose above the general murmur of conversation, and while it took a few moments to remember where she had heard it before, she did. Her heart seized in her chest. She stared at the group, and after a few seconds she saw the familiar bald head of the captain as another man leaned to wave an arm to summon a waiter.

The laugh -- that was Vash. 

It meant nothing other than archaeologists were doing what they did, on a planet with an ongoing dig that often revealed treasures of beauty and antiquity. It didn’t mean he would be caught up in another adventure that she would be drawn into with the captain, and it didn’t mean Vash would be -- 

Deanna picked up her drink and moved to another table, facing the other direction and banishing thoughts of returning to her room to eat in private. She didn’t sense anything. She didn’t have to hide away from possibilities she could simply ignore. But she was intensely thankful that she had brought enough inhibitor to practically stupefy herself for the duration.

She finished a light meal and another drink, and the music started -- she glanced out at the open dance floor, surrounded by strings of lights, and noted that dusk was fading into dark, and the stars were visible as were the two silvery moons hanging low on the horizon. Rising, she made her way carefully between the full tables and stood on the periphery of the dance floor watching for a moment. There were fifteen people on a floor large enough for fifty, and the music was a recording. The band wasn’t starting until much later. Early on, the energetic music, later the slow and romantic, from what the pleasant hostess had told her when she’d checked in. 

The alcohol thrummed in her veins, and the driving pace of the bass and percussion of the fast-tempo piece -- no one was waltzing to this. She stepped out of the line of onlookers and let the music carry her -- let herself feel the rhythm, let her body move as it would. She created a sinuous, energetic expression of how the song made her feel; the female singer sang out an aggressive desire for movement, in innuendo-laced lyrics that implied more than they revealed. Her eyes closed at some point. Other dancers appeared to be giving her plenty of room. 

As the song ended, she spun on the ball of a foot and opened her eyes, and walked toward the small bar farther down the patio -- she realized then that the dance floor was now completely empty. And people were clapping. Staring at her, smiling, and clapping. Deanna turned a complete revolution and bowed, and someone whistled loudly. She continued on her way to find another one of those lovely non-synthehol beverages, the sheen of perspiration from her dancing drying rapidly on her skin. 

“You’re a great dancer,” a man commented as she turned with the glass in hand. She smiled at him and tossed her hair back over her shoulder.

“It’s all the martial arts,” she replied. “Four times a week.” She turned and edged into the gathering crowd shoulder first, as he chuckled at her response. 

Deanna didn’t feel like sticking around as more people came out of the restaurant to dance so she reached the edge of the patio and took a path she knew traveled the circumference of the resort. It would take her along the beach outside her room. She was careful to glance around once in a while; she couldn’t sense anyone approaching, and it wouldn’t do to be too complacent, as she had learned through years of travels in the quadrant. Away from the artificial lighting she could enjoy the moonlight. The ground-level lighting was only as bright as it needed to be for someone to see the path. 

She rounded the end of the building she knew housed her rooms, and it blocked most of the noise from the restaurant. There were, here and there along the miles of open beach, people sitting or walking on the sand -- she strolled carefully down the narrow path and finally took off the high heels and walked barefoot. She counted patios -- her room was 10A, so that would be the tenth from the end.

As she passed 9A, she saw that someone was sitting at the table on her patio. She considered her options. But then the shadow stood and moved into the glow of the single light post, and she saw that it was the captain.

“Well, this is unexpected,” she said, coming up the slight slope to him. “They aren’t supposed to tell people the room numbers.”

He shrugged, a sheepish smile and downward glance giving her the information her empathy usually provided. “I confess that I cheated -- throwing my rank around has its privileges.”

Deanna went around him and put her empty glass on the table. The staff would clear it away if she left it. She sat down, pulling the short skirt over to keep her bare thigh off the metal chair. He hesitated, until she gestured at one of the other three chairs.

“Is something wrong? I thought you would be at the dig.” She wasn’t going to admit to anything, unless she had to. 

“No, nothing’s amiss. I was at the dig, and then -- I wasn’t aware they were staying at this resort, and shuttling back and forth. So I have a room somewhere on the fourth floor, and we were having drinks down in the restaurant area. And Duffy came back dejected, and told us some beautiful Betazoid had just shot him down.”

“You should tell Duffy she was just afraid to sit in his lap, she might get her skirt dirty.”

He laughed at it, a bit. More to humor her, she thought. His mood was pensive, and he wasn’t looking directly at her. 

“I didn’t know you were here,” she said. “This is one of my empathy-free vacations.”

“What?” He did look at her then. Not that he likely saw much, in the moonlight it was difficult to make out details. 

“I didn’t like how distressed and out of control I was, that time I lost my empathy. I sometimes get inhibitor and take a break -- it’s actually a relief, now, being able to be with my own feelings, unhindered by everyone else’s. I find a resort, take the inhibitor, go out to dinner, perhaps dance for a bit, and then meditate -- I take another dose at bedtime and sleep soundly without sensing a damn thing all night. I take another in the morning, if it’s wearing off, and go for a run on the beach and swim. Being all by myself, in my own body, with my own thoughts and feelings. It helps me. I can better differentiate between my emotions and those of others that happen to be similar, after I got to know myself better.”

She was being verbose -- the alcohol was still giving her a slight buzz, her head feeling like her brain slowly swooped in circles. 

“So you can’t tell how I’m feeling,” he surmised. “I wondered.”

“Are you feeling something unusual that I would have reacted in some predictable fashion?” She remembered Vash, then, and regretted the alcohol and the babbled question. 

He went quiet. It was a stressful quiet -- not having the usual feedback from him put her at a disadvantage. 

“It’s good to see you so relaxed,” she commented, to fill the silence and let him know she wasn’t expecting an answer. “Are you enjoying the break from the routine?”

The question of why he was there hung unasked, unanswered. 

“Not as much as I could.”

She waited, dropping her sandals on the patio at her feet and folding her hands in her lap. His silhouette, the one light at his back, gave her no clues. 

“I was hoping -- “

Deanna closed her eyes. She could hear the soft sounds of the surf, distantly. It was, perhaps, easier to talk here than it would have been on the ship. 

“I know.”

“You -- “

She sighed. “If you’re not recalling me to duty, what else would motivate you to leave your friends and come here? And I suspect that you’re debating endlessly whether it was even a good idea, and far too polite to impose now that you’re here, which says you weren’t particularly rational about going to all the trouble to be here. Come on, I need a drink.”

“I’m not sure you need another,” he said, trailing after her as she headed for the doors. They opened for her, as she had the room pass lodged in her bra under her left breast.

“Water is a drink.” Deanna plucked a glass from the pyramid of them on the mini-bar in the corner. She half filled it and turned -- he stood in the middle of the garish, gilded room, surrounded by tans, creams and gold. At least he had the manners to clean up and change, unlike his friend Duffy. He wore some of those form-fitting pants and an off white shirt, and she wondered randomly if Vash had unbuttoned the front that far down. 

He stared at her -- the dress, she realized. Perhaps her tattoo. His eyes flicked up to meet hers again. No change in that speculative expression. 

“Do you want anything?” She pointed at the glasses.

“No, thank you.” He glanced around, as if looking for something.

“It’s going to be a long night, if you’re going to follow me around looking at me and not saying much.” She enjoyed the softness of the plush carpet against her feet as she moved from the bar to the crescent-shaped, plush sofa in the middle of the room, to draw up her legs and settle into the cushion, sipping her water and looking up at him. 

“What do you want me to do?” At least he sat down with her, but he kept a few feet of air space between them. 

“It’s not as though you haven’t told me more sensitive, more personal things. It’s -- “ She heard herself doing it, and stopped. The counselor was supposed to be on the ship where she’d left her. “I don’t need anything, Jean-Luc. Perhaps I needed someone to tell me not to take on a traumatized Klingon child by myself. Perhaps I needed someone to tell me that it was a bad idea to commit myself to a career that effectively isolates me from any hope of finding a husband, if I really wanted one at some point. Because it’s absolutely impossible on a starship for a counselor -- I had a pretense of an intimate friendship, with a man who ended up being bad for me. I don’t need to be told that it’s absolutely stupid, to sit in my room with a man I work for, teasing him, if all I intend to find is a few moments of pleasure. That’s wholly counter productive. I should have brought Duffy in, if that’s all I wanted. I’m sure he cleans up well enough.”

Deanna sipped more water, thinking she’d said enough and deciding to lay off the alcohol in the future. Perhaps forever. Her mouth wasn’t paying much attention to her brain, though.

“But Counselor Troi will tell me that it would be stupid to expect anyone to sign up for what’s going to happen, when Alexander finally settles down and starts to process trauma. I certainly can’t expect that from a starship captain, nor can I ask any of my friends -- Beverly believes we can manage him. She hasn’t been in the room when he had a full tantrum. Klingons are strong. If he lost control, even now, he could hurt me. He will only get bigger. My only hope is to focus now, on helping him, as expeditiously as possible, as much as he will tolerate.”

“You could still -- but you have a reason, for not letting Kurn take him,” Jean-Luc said raggedly. “You chose as you did because you think it’s best for him.”

Deanna deliberately stared at the mural on the wall above the bed, a sunrise over the ocean, complete with flying birds and clouds. It wasn’t comfortable, not having any information at all on how he felt. The tone of voice was stressed. She didn’t want to know anything else.

“The ship may be the best option for a while. Building a relationship with Kurn will help. When he’s older, after the trauma is processed, I anticipate he’ll spend more and more time with the rest of his family. He needs to.”

“Will didn’t listen long enough to hear all of this, did he?”

She laughed harshly at it. “There you go, ruining my Riker free vacation. No, he never bothered to actually talk to me about plans for Alexander -- he no doubt assumed that I was wholly emotional, sentimental, taking on a poor little boy because Worf asked. He told me just the other morning in the lift that Worf asked him for advice, for Alexander -- I have to wonder what bullshit advice that was. If it led to Worf discussing his plans to approach me about marriage with a little boy who desperately wanted a mother, I should have kicked him through the wall.”

Silence drew itself out, long and solid.

“I’m sorry,” she said at last, closing her eyes. “I’m drunk. I should have stuck to water.” She turned to him finally, and froze.

Jean-Luc stared at her with a serious, intense, but otherwise unreadable expression. He had an elbow propped on the arm of the couch. 

“I should go,” he said at last. “I shouldn’t have interrupted your time off.”

Oh, the perils of liquor. Immediately, tears burst forth, and she dropped the glass on the carpet and thrust herself from the couch, lunging for the bathroom. She collided with the edge of the door, fell sprawling across the tile floor -- her knee banged on something and pain shot through, making her cry out. 

Blinking furiously, she pushed herself up into a sitting position and held her knee with both hands as if she could stop the pain with pressure. “Fucking idiot,” she spat, crying harder, leaning forward to rest her forehead on her knuckles.

“Deanna?” The anxiety in his voice sent it up nearly an octave. Then his hands were on her shoulders, and she shivered, gripping her knee. 

“I think I broke the kneecap,” she said tightly, her tears blurring her vision. “It feels about like that.”

“I’ll call -- there’s a doctor on site. But first….” 

Somehow, he picked her up. She found herself being swung through the air, curled against his chest, her head against his shoulder. It was so brief that she almost didn’t believe it happened, but she thought he must have kissed her forehead. He put her on the bed, in a nest of thick blankets and cushions, and left her there. She closed her eyes and tried not to sob as her knee throbbed.

It seemed to take forever but the doctor arrived at last, and as she suspected she’d cracked the patella. It took hardly any time at all for him to use the regenerator and the pain melted away, leaving her with just a trace of soreness. She asked and he did indeed have the correct chemistry to sober her up, and after the hypo to the throat he smiled sympathetically and beat a retreat, leaving her to her humiliation.

Jean-Luc sat on the edge of the bed and smiled at her, still curled up in the nest of cushions. “Feeling better?”

“Feeling stupid.” Deanna sat up, tossing aside one of the cushions. “I suppose I’ve had worse on vacation. I refuse to acknowledge defeat, however. I suspect the music is still going, and I can still dance, so if you want to go back to… your friends, I should be fine.”

“No. I don’t think so.”

She found his proximity unsettling. It was hard to look away without being wholly obvious that she was avoiding, and if she moved her hand just a little, she’d be touching his thigh. “I’m at a loss, then. I’m not going to babble any more. It’ll hardly be entertaining to watch me sleep. I’m really boring, while I meditate.”

“You don’t think there’s anything else to do?”

“I’m open to suggestions.”

He smiled, sly and enjoying himself. “Are you going to object if I kiss you?”

She frowned, and shoved herself backward against the headboard to look at him from a safer distance. 

“I’m not being impulsive.”

“It’s not that easy,” she exclaimed. “I’m complicated -- I have nothing but secrets all day, that I can’t talk about to anyone. I have a child who refuses to take anything seriously and drives away men -- and then there’s Alexander. When I was sixteen my mother flirted with my first boyfriend until he fled in terror. She’s been planning my wedding since I was four. She tells anyone she thinks I’m serious about all about it, including the part about the fifteen naked young men she’s hiring to carry me into the ceremony.”

He grinned at it. “Thanks for the warning.”

Deanna glanced down at the covers, at her lap, at the front of her dress, and finally noticed that the dress was a casualty of the spectacular fall -- the front of it had been pulled down completely off her breasts. She started to laugh -- what a splendidly ridiculous night this had been. She shook her head and leaned back, giggling madly, trying to catch her breath. 

“I’m not exactly anyone’s idea of the polished, perfect lady,” she said with a sigh. “I’m lucky I didn’t fall out of my dress on the dance floor, I suppose.”

“You’re a very good dancer,” he said. “Everyone was impressed. It wasn’t anything I’ve ever seen you do before. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you dance, even at some of the weddings we’ve had.”

“You’ve never seen me do a lot of things.”

“Well, you’ve never fallen like that before, certainly,” he said, but the amusement faded from his face as he said it. 

“Jean-Luc?”

He moved closer along the bed and took her hand. His eyes went to her face. “I thought you hit your head. I thought -- “

“I’m fine,” she said softly. “I’m sorry I frightened you.”

“I’m not going to leave you,” he said, his voice hardening.

She caught herself staring open-mouthed. “Oh.”

“It’s no good,” he said. “I’m no good at this. I don’t even know what to say.”

Deanna smiled at him with the fond look she always gave him. “That hasn’t happened in a long time. You could just say it. You could kiss me.”

He came at her like he’d been released from a force field, and her head struck the edge of the headboard audibly when he made contact. He broke off at once, concerned, and she started to laugh again, rubbing the back of her head and leaning to kiss him again.

With the inhibitor it was intense, pleasurable contact, not overwhelming as it could be without; he was good at it, and his hands went to her shoulders first. As he changed position and angle her breasts brushed the front of his shirt, then his arms went around her and his tongue caressed hers insistently. 

When he pulled away, he brushed his lips along her cheek and whispered, “I’ll be right back,” and left her there to head for the bathroom. Deanna took advantage of the moment to shove the dress off over her hips, over her legs, and took off the hose with it. She pitched the clothing toward her bag where it still sat on the table. Settling back into the plush, soft covers of the bed, she closed her eyes, just to rest them for a moment.

She opened her eyes to find the room was dark. Confused, she took stock of the situation before moving. The inhibitor still in effect told her it hadn’t been more than a few hours. Her eyes adjusted to the low light coming in the clear doors, and she glanced to the right -- well, he was still there, just asleep. He’d taken off his shirt and lay on his side, facing her. At least he didn’t snore.

“Typical,” she said to herself with a sigh, and went back to sleep. She hoped fervently that he hadn’t taken offense that she’d fallen asleep -- then again, it should have been fairly obvious how much she’d been through that she would be so tired.


	5. The Morning After

When Deanna woke again, it was very early morning -- the soft light of pre-dawn was filling the room, as she hadn’t shut the curtains. She was still completely naked, and the cover had been folded over her. Jean-Luc was gone, apparently. She sat up, and heard nothing. The bathroom door was open. He hadn’t gone outside -- no one on the patio. So, gone.

Well, that was not expected, but she supposed even Jean-Luc could say things and reconsider. Perhaps she had been so drunk she hadn’t noticed he was inebriated, too? But that didn’t make sense. She’d been the one doing all the idiotic things. 

She rummaged for her comm badge in her bag, and contacted the planetary communications network, gave her mother’s hotel and room number, and was put through in short order. 

“Hello, Little One,” Mother exclaimed happily. “We’re about to head down to get breakfast. Our hungry little tiger wants spaghetti.”

Deanna smiled at it. “I just wanted to check in. Is everything all right?”

“Yes!” shouted Alexander. “Mom, I miss you! Come swimming -- we’re going to a hot spring!”

“Oh, that sounds so wonderful, but I have another fifteen hours here -- but I am really looking forward to the zoo. You have fun and tell me all about it, all right?”

“Okay,” he said, disappointed. “How’s the captain?”

“You’ll have to ask him when he gets back from the archaeological expedition.”

She chatted with him for another few minutes and signed off for the day, so he would go eat -- he became irritable if meals were delayed too long, and she wanted him to have nothing but fun with his new grandmother. Tossing the badge on the table, she ran her fingers through her hair, contemplating. There would be activities she could indulge in, but open mic at the stage or a ride on the beach didn’t sound like fun just then. She stood looking out at the ocean, wishing he hadn’t left. But why wouldn’t he? They probably had an early start time at the dig. 

Deanna decided to indulge in the massage parlor. It was a clothing optional resort, so all she really needed was her room pass in hand, so she could get back in. But it wasn’t in the rumpled dress she’d worn last night. She searched the floor, felt under her left breast, checked through the covers and cushions on the bed, and then the light went on -- it must have come out in the bathroom when she fell. 

But feeling around the white tiles left her empty-handed. She sat on the edge of the bathtub and pondered. Her retinal scan would get her a new one, at the desk. She could take a bath, go get the massage, get a new room pass, and spend some time on the roof sunbathing. Perhaps she would see him when his time at the dig was done. 

Before she could put her plan into action, she heard voices. She froze, hand on the tub controls. That answered the mystery of the missing room pass. He'd taken it with him.

“ -- don’t need to keep following me. You’re going to be late for the shuttle.”

“Jean-Luc,” a familiar voice chided. “Come on.”

At once she realized several things -- the captain was completely frustrated, and Vash was the source of it. Deanna was surprised by how frustrated he was. Angry, really. She was on her feet instantly and started to talk, to announce her presence. "Are you going to -- “ As she came out and saw them, Deanna stopped as if surprised. “Well, hello, Vash. It’s been a long time.”

Vash had aged visibly. Right now she wasn’t smiling -- glaring, at the naked woman in front of her. 

“I was about to run a bath,” Deanna said, smiling at Jean-Luc. “I thought I would soak in some hot water before my massage.”

He didn’t bat an eye, but felt gratitude, and amusement put a tiny quirk at the corner of his mouth. Dropping his bag on the floor next to the bed, he turned and put a hand on Vash’s shoulder, guiding her toward the door. She shook him off and stalked away. He closed the door behind her.

“Sorry,” he said, returning to sit on the edge of the bed, facing her. He’d changed shirts. “Feeling better?”

“Sleep always helps. I’m sorry about falling asleep on you.”

“It was impulsive of me to just show up, anyway.” He was feeling embarrassed, and a little regret. 

Deanna sidled left, toward the table and her bag sitting on it, and took out a sheer cover-up to pull over her head. “I’m fortunate, I suppose, that none of this is going on my next performance review.”

“I’d have to give you high marks for presentation. That would offset the marks for drunken behavior.”

She made an amused noise, not quite a laugh. “If she’s late for the shuttle, what does that make you?”

“Having breakfast with you.”

She gave him a pleased smile. “Room service, or the restaurant?”

“I wouldn’t mind having a look around in full daylight. This appears to be a well appointed resort.”

He was startled when she turned for the door as she was. He followed her, though, and said nothing. 

“You weren’t told this is a clothing optional resort, I suppose,” she said as they went down the hall toward the exit closest to the restaurant. 

“In that case, why did you put that on?”

“Sometimes almost no clothing is more alluring than none at all. Presentation.”

They stepped out of the building as the sun finally crept over the top of the eight story resort and glowed crimson. She smiled and took his arm. As he was comfortable with that, actually quite contented by it, she continued to hold it, as they followed the path toward the restaurant.

“I’m sorry that I showed up drunk on your patio,” he said, breaking the silence at last.

“I thought that might be the case. I’m sorry that I was more inebriated than you were,” she said quietly. “I wouldn’t expect it of you. Impulsive is not what you do with your officers.”

“It’s not what I wanted to do with you. Though you’ve been throwing a great number of broad hints, it’s not -- “ He struggled for a moment, thinking, frustrated. “I suppose it’s more that I would rather not be so rushed. Tempting as it is. It doesn’t feel respectful, to you.”

Deanna rested her cheek on the rough sleeve of his green shirt. “I love you, too.”

He stopped walking and stared at her. 

“It also isn’t like you to drink too much,” she said, as if she hadn’t just thrown the words into the conversation so impetuously. “Was she harassing you the entire time?”

“If I had known she was with the expedition I would have done something else. And -- “ He put a hand over hers, where she still held on to his arm. “I missed you.”

“I’m glad you found me, even if you were drunk and I nearly self destructed on the bathroom floor.”

Jean-Luc gave her a scolding look, and started walking again. He was thinking about it, and she sensed the echoes of the distress he’d felt, that she had missed being on the inhibitor. She held her tongue. 

But as they reached the restaurant, chose a table under the canopy, she started to feel guilty. “Jean-Luc.”

He looked up from the menu. “Yes?”

“I didn’t take another dose of inhibitor. I just felt you should know that.”

He blinked, doing a slight double-take, and frowned a little. “But I thought you came to have a vacation from….” He started to feel guilty himself. “I shouldn’t have stayed.”

“I’d rather spend the rest of the vacation with you. I’m not trying to be pushy, I just don’t know how long it will be, until the next leave. We don’t have a lot of uninterrupted time, on the ship. And Alexander already thinks we’re together. The more time we spend together in his presence, the worse it will get.”

“You don’t suppose he’ll figure it out if I show up at the zoo with you? Perhaps we should just tell him.”

The waiter arrived -- it was the same one she’d had at dinner, and he smiled appreciatively at her as she ordered. Jean-Luc asked for coffee and croissants, and some fruit, and frowned at the tanned, muscular young man as he walked away.

“I thought you were here alone,” a familiar voice said. 

“Duffy,” Jean-Luc exclaimed. “Did you miss the shuttle?” He gestured at the third chair at their triangular table. 

Duffy was clean, today, dressed in clothes similar to yesterday’s. Deanna smiled at him. “I was here alone. He was supposed to be at the dig.” 

“He’s supposed to be there today, as I was. I have an excuse, though.”

“What’s her name?” Jean-Luc asked with a smirk. He was clearly a different person when off the ship and out of uniform.

“You first,” Duffy exclaimed, not hiding the open appraisal of Deanna’s near-nudity.

“This is Commander Deanna Troi. She’s one of my senior officers.”

Duffy grinned, sitting up straighter. “I love your uniform.”

She laughed at him, and reached out with her foot, finding Jean-Luc’s shoe and sliding her toes up his leg. “I can’t say that it’s exactly regulation. But thank you.”

“Well -- “

“Duffy,” called out a familiar voice. 

“There she is. See you later, maybe,” Duffy exclaimed, grinning at Jean-Luc and leaving in a hurry, to jog out across the patio to where Vash was waiting. 

“That was fast.” Deanna sighed. “I hope he’s all right.”

“I think he’ll figure it out. She doesn’t appear to be doing anything illegal, this time, at least.”

Breakfast came quickly, and they took their time. She thought he was probably regretting the near-miss and doing some of the usual brooding that often ended up with him returning to status quo, the starship captain who had married the ship and flirted with other options but always returned to the bridge just the same. 

“I thought you were on vacation,” he chided suddenly.

She raised her eyes from an inspection of the remaining half of her omelet. Smiling tentatively, she realized how sad she’d gotten, just thinking about the possibility that he might backtrack. “Sorry.”

“What is it?”

“I really don’t want to ruin the day. I was simply musing about something.”

He frowned at that, and put down his mug. The stern, determined look told her she’d better confess.

“I was -- remembering, that you have considered relationships before, and always returned to what you swore an oath to do, just the same.”

It made him angry, and he caught himself when she reacted to that with wide eyes and a hand over her mouth. He’d never been actually angry at her before. He settled down almost at once, and spent a moment glaring at a croissant.

“It’s not the same,” he said at last. “You’re not the same. I’m not.”

“I know. It’s why I started to feel differently. I realized how much you’ve changed. But some of what was said last night holds true. My life is complicated now. And you have never enjoyed my mother’s company.”

He sat thinking about that, giving her an incredulous, dubious sort of look that brought tears to her eyes. She ached at the thought of losing him before she even really had him, and tried to eat the rest of her breakfast. 

“Was that why you were crying, last night, when you ran into the wall? You thought I would leave and decide I would… stop caring, and go back to being just the captain?”

Her brow wrinkled. She poked the cold omelet and dropped the fork. “I think so. I felt so -- “ She swallowed the sensation of choking, and spent a moment breathing. “I felt so lost. I wanted you to stay, and it felt like failure, if you left that way. You sounded… like you were giving up.”

He picked up his coffee again, and she had the impression it reassured him. But at the same time, he had become upset about something. 

“That wouldn’t have happened. I simply felt frustrated with myself for allowing myself to show up like that, unannounced, without any discussion or mutual agreement on -- anything. It was too much of an assumption. I would never want to pressure you into anything, in any way. And then it was obvious that you were drunk, and that reminded me of how much I'd been drinking, which led to finally realizing that it was a bad idea all around.”

It felt like a knife to the heart -- like it struck the wound that Will had left there, when he’d met her at the door holding a rose and a ring, expecting and anticipating things that she couldn’t give him and feelings she couldn’t feel for him. She barely stopped the sob -- grabbing the napkin, she held it to her mouth and started to feel nauseated.

“I think I should go back to the room,” she managed. “This isn’t settling very well.”

He didn’t question at that point, walked her away from the sparsely - occupied restaurant and back to the suite. “What do you need?” he asked as they came in.

“I’ll be out in a minute,” she said, heading into the bathroom and closing the door. She went to the sink, and leaned over it for a moment. Then she rummaged in the top drawer -- she was correct, there were basic medications, including an antacid. It made her feel better at once, settling her stomach. She washed her face, looked at her reflection in the mirror, and sighed. He was worrying.

She came out and led him to the couch, and sat with him. “It wasn’t what you said, exactly,” she began. “It was that you meant it. It was that Will’s impulsive gestures aren’t the romance he thinks they are for me. Trying to sweep me off my feet doesn’t work. I know you aren’t going to be that way, impulsive, with someone you want a relationship with. For me, last night wasn’t so impulsive as you think. I already knew you will not treat me with that same disrespect. I already knew how you felt, and it makes me happy. So I’m happy to be with you regardless of what we do, or how slowly it progresses.”

Jean-Luc had his arm around her before she finished talking, and pulled her close against him. When he didn’t move, she relaxed and closed her eyes. He felt quite content that way, and after some contemplation, she deduced that the feeling was mutual, and sighed happily. Perhaps they would find something else to do. Perhaps they would sit there for the rest of the day. It would be acceptable either way, she decided.


	6. The Talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the way from Alaska. Possibly disjointed, as there have been only short periods of time to think about this, and shorter periods to type.

“Let’s go for a walk,” he said at long last.

Deanna stirred -- she’d fallen into a light meditative state, she realized, sitting there with him, feeling so at peace. She hummed a little and pressed her nose and lips against the bare skin over his collarbone, a sort of half-kiss, and moved off. “I’m going to take a quick shower. I suppose you’ve already done so?”

“I did, before I collected my things and came downstairs. I didn’t want to wake you.”

She left the door slightly ajar, not spending a lot of time thinking about that, but as she got out of the sonic shower and applied spray-on sunscreen it occurred to her that it might have seemed to be an invitation. But they’d already talked about that, and he likely wouldn’t do more than a kiss, today at least. She knew how deliberate he could be about things.

Deanna smiled at her reflection as she started to brush out her hair. She did like this part of a relationship. The anticipation was part of the fun. 

He watched her come out and go to the table, to select clothing. “If you were intending to indulge in the clothing optional aspect of being here, don’t let me change that.”

She half-turned, pivoting at the hip to look at him, watching her over the back of the couch. “If I’m not on the inhibitor it becomes annoying to be nude.”

“So take more inhibitor. I’ve already disrupted your time off enough.”

“Well, the debate is really whether to enjoy the man I’m with, enjoying me, or to be able to ignore the occasional leer.”

She enjoyed the reaction to that more than she enjoyed the appreciation of her body, in the moments that he allowed himself to look at her with more attention. She decided then -- it would be a compromise. She plucked a hypo out of the side pocket of her bag. Dialing back to half a dose, she administered just enough to limit her range. The rest of the compromise -- a bikini, in red, and another cover up, this one sheer black with a few sequins to add sparkle. She’d put her hair in a very loose braid, leaving strands flying away, and she found a very dark burgundy lipstick to put on. 

“Shall we?”

Jean-Luc rose to comply, and stopped to stare at the finished product. A subdued smile and a flicker of a predatory gleam in his eyes were her reward, along with the undercurrent of attraction -- it didn’t come to her as clearly as it had, just a moment before. She’d taken a little more inhibitor than planned but she knew it would fade, and as the hours passed things would be clearer and clearer to her.

They left via the patio and walked along the beach. Another perfect day -- Lavonia was one of those worlds that didn’t even need weather control. 

“Have you been here before?” he asked, feeling a surge of pleasure as she took his arm again. 

“No, but it’s one of Mother’s favorites. She’s talked about it several times, as opposed to mentioning it only once.” Several young men were jogging along the sand in the opposite direction; two of them slowed slightly, distracted by her, but she turned her head toward the man she was with, to smile happily and tighten her arm around his. 

The open mic session had started, and someone had started to sing -- it was an appealing enough soprano that Jean-Luc was curious, and they meandered around the pool area to the innermost corner of the immense U of buildings, where a small stage had been tucked away. Scattered groups of tourists had taken seats in the chairs, listening, waiting their turn, some of them. 

“Do you sing?” he asked quietly.

“I might. No guarantee that I can hold a tune or stay on key. But I’ve done it on a dare. Do you?”

She knew better -- she remembered well enough that he disliked performing or being made a spectacle of, especially on the ship or anywhere the crew might find them. He felt a dart of ire, and then he shifted to mischief.

“I dare you.”

Letting go of his arm, she sauntered across the back of the seating area and turned down the left side of the chairs, to the console where one selected the background music for the performance. She took her time entering search terms looking for songs she was familiar with, and smiled as she found two. There was nothing else in the queue, so when the tiny woman wearing nothing at all finished her Devonian opera she would be next.

Deanna went up the four steps slowly, to wait in the wings. There was a rack of wireless microphones, and she picked one and fastened it over her ear. She waited as the crowd applauded politely, and stepped out on the stage as the blond with her long straight hair smiled and waved at her as she exited stage right. 

Immediately, several people took notice. It was as she had told Jean-Luc, a little clothing properly applied sometimes made more of an impact. The soft, plaintive plucking of a guitar started, and she stood in the center of the stage, waiting for her cue. The key was to relax and sing, to put the emotion the song needed into the words. And she knew the songs she had chosen would be perfect.

She saw that Jean-Luc had seated himself in the second row, which was empty, and sprawled, arms across the backs of the seats next to him. As she started to sing, she focused on him, and modulating her volume to the set volume of the mic. The ballad had an easy tempo, and the melancholy was easy to achieve.

I know I can't take one more step towards you  
'Cause all that's waiting is regret  
Don't you know I'm not your ghost anymore  
You lost the love I loved the most

She saw his head come up slightly, and knew he recognized the relevance at once. 

I learned to live half alive  
And now you want me one more time

And who do you think you are?  
Runnin' 'round leaving scars  
Collecting your jar of hearts  
And tearing love apart

You're gonna catch a cold  
From the ice inside your soul  
So don't come back for me  
Who do you think you are?

She waited through the first interlude of instrumentation, but not for long. Others were sitting up and listening, now. Honest emotion always did the trick.

I hear you're asking all around  
If I am anywhere to be found  
But I have grown too strong  
To ever fall back in your arms

And I've learned to live half alive  
And now you want me one more time  
And who do you think you are?  
Runnin' 'round leaving scars  
Collecting your jar of hearts  
And tearing love apart

You're gonna catch a cold  
From the ice inside your soul  
So don't come back for me  
Who do you think you are?

And it took so long just to feel alright  
Remember how to put back the light in my eyes  
I wish I had missed the first time that we kissed  
'Cause you broke all your promises

A short instrumental break, as the strings rose to a crescendo for the beginning of the last third of the song. She pushed her range, singing the next two lines higher and with more anger than pathos.

And now you're back  
You don't get to get me back

And who do you think you are?  
Runnin' 'round leaving scars  
Collecting your jar of hearts  
And tearing love apart  
You're gonna catch a cold  
From the ice inside your soul  
So don't come back for me  
Don't come back at all

And who do you think you are?  
Runnin' 'round leaving scars  
Collecting your jar of hearts  
Tearing love apart  
You're gonna catch a cold  
From the ice inside your soul  
Don't come back for me  
Don't come back at all  
Who do you think you are?  
Who do you think you are?  
Who do you think you are?

The music ended just moments after the last, long-held iteration of the angry, sad wail of a woman tired of the persistent ex, and people actually stood -- Jean-Luc didn’t, but he applauded with a serious, slow clap and seemed to be intent and appreciative. It was hard to sense how he felt, as her obvious feeling had resonated and amplified in the listening audience, one of the many reasons she didn’t usually do this sort of thing. Half a dose of inhibitor countered most of it, thankfully.

She stood still, and the music started again -- this time the quiet ballad had a hopeful, appreciative feel, and she smiled as she opened her mouth.

A certain type of wind has swept me up  
A chill has found each bone  
I am overcome  
There is an icy breath that escapes my lips

And I am lost again  
A certain type of darkness has stolen me  
Under a quiet mask of uncertainty  
I wait for light like water from the sky  
And I am lost again

In the sea of lovers without ships  
And lovers without sight  
You’re the only way out of this  
Sea of lovers losing time  
And lovers losing hope  
Will you let me follow you  
Wherever you go  
Bring me home

A certain type of silence has filled my voice  
I scream beneath the water and make no noise  
All my prayers go quiet, they're never heard

She repeated the refrain and the first verse, reinforcing the emotion of the song in the way of all songs. Repetition built momentum of feeling. The refrain repeated again, and she sang the song to the end, letting the wistfulness swell in the words, opening her mouth wider to let the sound build.

Will you let me follow you  
Wherever you go  
Bring me home

 

She had been looking at him, but as she held the final note, she glanced up -- the audience had swelled and people were standing and sitting all around. The applause increased, as did the emotional currents buffeting her. Deanna took a modest bow, and turned to go return the mic, but people started to boo, and someone shouted ‘just one more.’

Sighing, she held up a finger, and went back to the console. It took a minute to find something both in her range and suitable to getting off the stage instead of being boo’d back onto it.

When she came back out, scattered applause greeted her. She smiled serenely and waited, hands at her side, knowing that there would only be a few notes before she started. The tempo would be such that she would have to throw significantly more energy into the song. As the first notes of an electronic guitar and a driving drum beat started, she started to move -- just a swivel of the hip and she threw herself into singing, starting out slightly off pitch but correcting quickly. She put a curl in her lip, channeling more aggressive impulses.

Check it out  
Going out  
On the late night  
Looking tight  
Feeling nice  
It's a cock fight  
I can tell  
I just know  
That it's going down  
Tonight  
At the door we don't wait cause we know them  
At the bar six shots just beginning  
That's when dick head put his hands on me  
But you see

I'm not here for your entertainment  
You don't really want to mess with me tonight  
Just stop and take a second  
I was fine before you walked into my life  
Cause you know it's over  
Before it began  
Keep your drink just give me the money  
It's just you and your hand tonight

 

She added in momentary poses and hand gestures, holding out hands as if pushing away the aggressive males she’d met over the years. They were eating it up -- the women in particular were grinning, and when she added the suggestive hand pump several of them howled and clapped. The next verse required a little extra gravel in the tone and some sensual snarling.

Midnight  
I'm drunk  
I don't give a fuck  
Wanna dance  
By myself  
Guess you're outta luck  
Don't touch  
Back up  
I'm not the one  
Buh bye  
Listen up it's just not happening  
You can say what you want to your boyfriends  
Just let me have my fun tonight  
Alright

I'm not here for your entertainment  
You don't really want to mess with me tonight  
Just stop and take a second  
I was fine before you walked into my life  
Cause you know it's over  
Before it began  
Keep your drink just give me the money  
It's just you and your hand tonight

As usual, with this sort of song, some of the listeners picked up the refrain and sang along, and the women practically shouted it with her. Obviously not only her problem. The music went into the bridge, and she almost chanted the words.

In the corner with your boys you bet 'em five bucks  
You'd get the girl that just walked in but she thinks you suck  
We didn't get all dressed up just for you to see  
So quit spilling your drinks on me yeah

For the spoken lines, she targeted a handsome young man in the near corner, pointing at him. 

You know who you are  
High fiving, talking shit, but you're going home alone arentcha?

And off she spun into the refrain, spinning on her toes, starting to really dance, looking down at a few ladies who’d come to the front to dance with her.

Cause I'm not here for your entertainment  
No  
You don't really want to mess with me tonight  
Just stop and take a second  
I was fine before you walked into my life  
Cause you know it's over  
Before it began  
Keep your drink just give me the money  
It's just you and your hand tonight

The refrain repeated, and now she gestured for them to come up, and women rushed the stage and started to really move -- she faded off to the right still singing, and the song ended on the sudden stop she knew would come. She dropped the mic in the rack and fled. While everyone howled and applauded, she made it down to the single unmoving man in the audience. He’d come out of the seats and met her, and they strode off together -- he put his arm around her, an unusual gesture, but it served to dissuade a handful of people who’d started to come toward them. 

Someone else started more upbeat music as they retreated past the pool toward the beach. Once they reached the sand, she expected him to move his arm, but it dropped to her waist instead, his hand resting on her hip and keeping her close.

“You said you couldn’t sing,” he said accusingly.

“You’re making the same mistake everyone does. Enthusiasm and emotion are all it takes. Just like dancing. No one really knows how to do it, but enough enthusiasm and energy can fool the unpracticed ear. I have an unremarkable voice, but I know how to put the emotion out there.”

He didn’t believe her, and took a little umbrage at the suggestion that he was wrong. The ire softened as they walked.

“You could have written those songs,” he commented.

“But I didn’t. There are plenty of people in the galaxy having similar problems. The catharsis is sometimes empowering.”

He meandered down the sand with her, giving her opportunity to see his profile, as he was deep in thought and hardly paying attention. At some point he moved away slightly and she let go of his arm, walked close but not touching. There were fewer people on the beach as they went farther down the shore. She slowed when she realized how far they had come from the resort -- it was close to midday. The change in pace shook him out of his thoughts.

“I’m sorry. I’m being poor company,” he said. 

“I wasn’t uncomfortable.” She looked back. “We should turn around.”

“You don’t find silence uncomfortable?”

She smiled at it. “Think about what I get to do all day. Since Alexander moved in I’m slowly training him to do things quietly. I’m exhausted.”

“No wonder you’ve been drafting playmates for him.”

They walked in silence again for a while. She kept sweeping her hair back from her face when the wind blew it across her eyes, wishing she’d gotten a clip. 

“What did you mean when you said your parenting methods were incompatible with Beverly’s?” she asked.

“Oh -- next to nothing. Because she’s a parent, and I’m only one in my dreams.”

Deanna snorted at it. “That counts, I think. You have a bad habit of downplaying your experiences.”

He went silent again, but unlike before, it was uncomfortable. She looked at him and found him looking back, and they slowed to a halt as if by mutual consent. Before she could ask him what his concerns were, he said, ”Do you want children?”

She gaped at him as if he’d suggested they go get assimilated together. “You mean in general, someday, or specifically with you? And to be fair you get to answer your own question.”

“I meant to find out if you intended to have them regardless, if it was going to be an expectation -- “

“Putting on the brakes and then jumping the track to head for the infield isn’t fair!”

He took a few steps away from her, as if she were threatening him. “I’ve never heard you yell at me before. This is traumatizing.”

“Oh, shut up,” she exclaimed, enjoying the amusement he was feeling. 

He laughed, and it was clear that he did not laugh enough -- she couldn’t remember the last time he’d done it without restraint. It gave her joy to hear it. Or perhaps she was happy that he felt more affection than amusement, and the laughter was more about that than anything else. 

“All right,” he said, as if capitulating. But he wasn’t shutting up. “Yes.”

She had to take a moment to mentally backtrack and understand it. “Yes, you want to have children?”

“You’re going to make me re-think it, if you sound so disbelieving as that.”

“I knew you’d changed. I think I’ve underestimated how much. What else have you not told me that I’m going to fall down in shock about?”

He looked at her, as they strolled along in the sand toward the resort again, and she had the impression that he was doing as he had done for so many years -- collecting himself to defend, to put up the front that he’d maintained for so long. Then he did a remarkable sort of internal regroup, and said, “I’m not certain how to answer. I think you might be better informed than most, as to the changes over the years, but I don’t immediately recall every conversation. And you’re dodging the question.”

“But I’m not, because I’m sure you remember conversations on long shuttle rides, during poker games -- you know I’ve made no secret of wanting children.”

His expression was a soft scold. “You aren’t allowed to change?” 

“This is the point, exactly,” she said, smoothing her flyaway hair back yet again as she walked. “Last night you made a decision, to delay something that probably wouldn’t have been deadly to our relationship.”

Jean-Luc crossed his arms. The incredulity he felt showed in his face, furrowed his brow.

“I understand that you are setting me apart, in a way, from others you have known. I understand that you are approaching me differently because we already have a professional relationship, and a friendship, and both are quite strong and solidly based in trust -- I told you already, that I know you won’t do what others have done to me. You don’t want to jeopardize the friendship, or the professional rapport. But remember that I have not only my own relationships but the many others I have observed as a counselor, all the ways they fail and succeed. I have seen couples go through betrayals and stay together regardless, and forge stronger ties than they had before. I’ve seen them fall apart when she found out he would not stop going out with his friends several nights a week.”

When she would not go on, he asked the question she expected. “And so what, pray tell, is your conclusion?”

“In the end, a relationship does not end on the weight of a single decision. A relationship is built, and destroyed, one decision at a time -- many, many tiny choices, as the couple moves along toward the conclusion that they determine, til death do they part or til the separation -- and even that is a phase the relationship faces, one small decision at a time. Everyone changes, and we sometimes have to choose between the integrity and honesty with ourselves, and the relationship. If I had chosen to try again with Will, I would not have been happy because I knew what he wanted his married life to be like and that no longer suits me. Aside, of course, from the fact that I don’t feel the kind of love he needs to have.”

He took his time digesting that, walking along with her. They reached the resort and were almost back to the room by the time he responded.

“So you are saying that had we ended up making love, last night, it would not have ended things. But, it might have changed things. You’ve made the point already that life is complicated for you. I think that having children immediately might be more complication than you want. And I am not at all certain of whether you are on birth control.”

She had one foot on the patio when he said it, and turned to stare at him incredulously. He gazed back at her, his expression not showing the satisfaction he felt in being able to surprise her.

“All you had to do was tell me that was your concern,” she said smoothly.

“It wasn't the only concern.”

“So you’re more concerned about our working relationship?”

He finally started to follow her, and they went through the doors into the cooler room. And Deanna realized that he looked redder than before. “You didn’t put on anything for the sun -- did you?”

“You did?”

“Of course I did. I’ll get something for it. You might start to feel burned.” Deanna went into the bathroom and found the dermal regenerator and some lotion. He was already sitting on the couch when she came back, and as she sat next to him she pulled aside a lapel to check. 

“You’re right, I think,” he said. “I feel a little dry.”

She started with the regenerator and followed it with the lotion without thinking about it. She realized what she was doing as she rubbed it into his skin -- he smiled, but let her apply the lotion to the reddened patch on his chest where his shirt was open at the neck, and then she started at the top of his head and worked her way down. 

“Would you like to put some on your face?” She ran a hand over his scalp one last time, and finally looked him in the eye.

“You’re not going to do it for me?” He sounded playful, and underneath the amusement she could tell he found her touch quite enjoyable.

“You’ll have to ask. Given the current agreement -- “

Jean-Luc snaked a hand up to catch the back of her head and pull her in for a kiss. The inhibitor was starting to wear off. She leaned into the kiss and enjoyed it for as long as he was willing to participate. When he let go, she settled back and resigned herself to being patient, not following it up or touching him with her hands.

He felt a little frustrated. “You don’t want to continue?”

“Put on the lotion,” she said, pushing the small bottle into his hand. “I can feel the heat from your cheeks. The regenerator healed the burn, but your skin probably feels dry because it is.”

He obeyed, dabbing on some with his fingertips, and made a token effort at rubbing it in. She sighed and reached over to finish rubbing in the white streaks he left. 

“What broad hints?” she asked. When he frowned, she went on. “You said that I was hinting broadly to you -- I don’t remember intentionally giving you any hints.”

He felt dismay, and said nothing. 

“You thought they were hints,” she guessed. He must have been reading into things she’d said. After a moment, waiting for a response and getting none, she moved on. “I hope that we are able to find time to spend together, once we are aboard the ship again. I suppose it will take a while, to reach the point that you are ready to move forward.”

He sighed heavily, and began to feel weary -- frustrated.

“Jean-Luc?”

“I’ve seen you jump into relationships before,” he said faintly. “I’d rather not see you hurt again.”

She settled back on the couch and nodded thoughtfully. “You want me to be sure. Does that mean you are so sure about me?”

“I know who you are. I know what I need.”

Such an interesting word choice, she thought. “You didn’t start to think about this until I told you Will was not serious when he flirted with me, Jean-Luc. You didn’t know what he was doing for me.” Then it occurred to her to ask, “If you had not believed Will meant something to me, would you have approached me sooner?”

“Yes.”

That took her aback. His willingness to pull strings to get Will promoted away as quickly as possible was making more sense all the time.

“I didn’t think I had a chance with you. There came a point at which I started to feel very comfortable with you,” he confessed, sitting there with his hands limp on his thighs, staring at the floor. “You started to feel like home, to me.”

“I think I understand what you mean. But I’d like you to explain that more.” 

“I realized that I was comfortable spending time with you,” he said after a long hesitation. “That time we spent talking was when I relaxed the most. I could spend time alone in my quarters but there started to be less comfort in that. I wasn’t enjoying solitude as I once did. The last conference you attended, I missed you very much. When you returned and came in to talk to me about how it all went, I sat across my desk listening and trying very hard not to think about how much I wanted to kiss you.”

Deanna watched his face as he talked, and tracked the muted emotions she sensed from him, and tried to formulate a response that didn’t sound inane. That conference had been months ago. She remembered sensing extreme frustration from him, and at the time she’d assumed some other cause.

He wasn’t looking at her, and struggled with feelings she didn’t expect. Anger, and embarrassment, as he went on. “I started to feel quite ridiculous about it, actually. I attempted to stop feeling that way. I tried to see you as a daughter, instead -- it only worked if I didn’t look at you, but that led to questioning from you as to why I was so distracted.”

“Oh,” she blurted. “I think I remember that. You lied to me when I asked what was wrong. I let it be, and moved on with what we were talking about. You were keeping something to yourself but that was fine, I’ve accepted a long time ago that I can’t demand explanations from people when they do that.”

“So you did notice,” he said, a little upset.

“Why would it bother you that I did? All I could tell was that you had something going on, and you were doing your best to deal with it without my help. I offered but you refused. It wasn’t interfering in your duties, so I had no grounds to make a demand, so I let you be. To be honest -- “

Jean-Luc turned to stare at her when she didn’t continue, indignant. “If we are being honest about this, you get to finish the sentence.”

Deanna smiled sadly. “I thought you might be working on approaching Beverly again.”

It didn’t get the angry response she thought it might. He had quite mixed feelings on the subject of his past attraction to Beverly, but didn’t react to it with the sensitivity she would have expected had there been anything to it. “I can’t do that again.”

That he acknowledged it at all surprised her. He hadn’t said a word to her about it. She had heard from Beverly about the near miss of his suggestion that they act on the attraction between them. Beverly had spent a few weeks debating going back, changing her mind, but in the end she had done nothing and friendly breakfasts had resumed, on a less regular basis, and things went back to normal. 

Deanna decided to loop back to something that might be less invasive. “It’s an odd thing to say to someone -- I’ve never had anyone tell me they wanted to be with me because I feel like home to them.”

“I never expected to say it.” He looked away again, his eyes taking on the distant look of someone retreating into memory. “I -- “

Deanna put her hand on his thigh, as she sensed him starting to drift into the past. He leaned back and took it in his, absently, then looked at her. “I found that when I was with you I often thought about Kataan. It took some time to realize why. It wasn’t that you are really like her, but I started to feel as I did, when I was at home with Eline.”

“You’ve told me some things about that experience. But recovering from it was something you did slowly, mostly on your own.”

“I appreciated that you were willing to allow me to do that. I wasn’t comfortable sharing it with anyone. I thought that it was unique, being allowed to experience having a family, and I believed I would never have that experience again. And I started to regret that I had built my life in such a way that I would be alone. Perhaps it has escaped your notice that I’m not so young as you are?”

“I don’t see age as an impediment. As for your solitary nature, that has been less the case than before. You’ve even spent time with Alexander.” She paused, then inched closer and raised his arm to slide under it. He welcomed her leaning against him, cheek to his shoulder. “So you mean that spending time with me gives you contentment, in the same way you found it with Eline. And what about all the times you’ve felt so frustrated in the past months? What about the nights you were indulging in… solitary pleasures?” She sighed again. “I am admiring your self discipline all over again, thinking about last night. And then you actually stayed to sleep with me.”

“You act as though none of this is sudden, for you. Here I am trying to give you time, and you actually feel frustration that I’m not simply throwing myself at you.”

“I’ve known how you’ve felt all this time. I simply didn’t know it was me you were feeling it about until you switched counselors.”

At that, he turned his head toward her, feeling a little surprise. “Really?”

Deanna sighed heavily. “No, that’s a lie. I knew you were deciding to acknowledge it, when you did that. I ignored it, before then. Did my best to. It was difficult when I started to find myself reacting to it, in small ways. But I believed you were sticking to career first, letting nothing distract you, and so I opted to ignore my reactions to you as well. I realized that it was me, not Beverly, when you became angry when Beverly interrupted our conversation one day in the ready room -- when we were talking about your experience with Ambassador Voval, and you were laughing and being amused about it rather than express how embarrassing it was for you. Because you enjoyed talking to me, and you didn’t enjoy Beverly’s comments on it. And it was obvious then how you really felt about her, and how different that was from how you were feeling about me.” That had been a few months ago. 

"Voval reminded me how alone I really am. The embarrassment was about... how frustrating it was, to be so close to you on a daily basis and unable to say anything to you about it."

It was pathetic, that there was so little she could do to help him, at this point. She touched his arm gently.

Jean-Luc pulled her closer yet, half onto his lap, and buried his face in her hair. He sat that way for a long time in silence. It was difficult to not react to what she sensed of him, difficult not to put her hands on him and kiss him while he went through the process of feeling regret, self recriminations and so forth -- it wouldn’t be unlike him to decide that he should have somehow known what to say so much earlier on, so as not to waste any time avoiding her. 

“So as it turns out,” she said quietly, her lips moving against his throat, “we have been having a long conversation about this all along. To the point that you were reading into my words some hints that I was welcoming of your attentions, if you were willing to bestow them upon me. Getting messages that I did not intend to send you. Perhaps hoping so much that you might get such messages from me that you were finding them in my words regardless of my actual intent?”

He snorted at it and tightened his arms around her.

“So I shouldn’t have panicked, when I realized you were here, and Vash was too.”

It disrupted the peace briefly. He held onto her as if he might lose her if he didn’t. The surprise and displeasure were thankfully brief.

“You didn’t,” he murmured. 

“I did until I realized I had enough inhibitor to be insensible for days. And there is a self-serve bar in the room, over there, in the corner.”

Another moment, in which he was torn between surprise, belief and disbelief. “Are you exaggerating?” he murmured into her hair.

“Not at all.”

Jean-Luc muttered a few choice curses. Then, it struck him. “You panicked?”

“It would not have been unheard of for you to expend a little sexual frustration on leave. Given how much tension there has been without such opportunities to -- “ She found herself being set aside, pushed away, and sat on the couch apart from him, staring at him as he rose and paced. “I thought you weren’t going to allow yourself to explore a relationship with me. But you’ve obviously thought about us a lot more than I anticipated -- you’re even approaching it as you would a mission.”

He stopped abruptly and stared at her. 

“We just had a long conversation about relationships that was very much like a briefing. Orienting ourselves to each other’s perspectives, preparing for a mutual endeavor.”

With a sad smile, he shook his head as he approached and sat with her once again. “I suppose you must be right,” he said.

“Why are you sad?”

“Because I’m clueless -- I intended to actually build a relationship and we seem to be carrying on, business as usual.”

Deanna couldn’t help grinning at him. “There’s not really a template for such things, you know. We could probably continue to come up with one to suit ourselves. I suspect that it will be necessary for you to feel comfortable.”

He smirked, now. “I deserve the mockery, I suppose.”

Her grin diminished, as she thought about it some more. About the level of anxiety he’d had, and how that had manifested itself -- he didn’t know what she wanted from a lover or prospective mate, and he was trying to find out. He had never gone into any sexual encounter with the intent of making it a real, lasting relationship, and none of his encounters had even become an attempt at such when the thought of it had occurred to him. He felt lost. The pressure he was putting on himself just approaching this with her, openly, was obvious. To her -- outwardly he merely seemed a bit anxious. How flattering, that he would be so anxious, and yet he still made the attempt rather than giving up.

“What is it?” he asked. “Is something wrong?”

“No. I’m simply appreciating the sacrifice you’re making -- you could be at the dig, instead.” Deanna decided that, since he wanted it so much and couldn't seem to manage normalcy, that she would do her best to help him with that. 

He appeared to be looking down at his own feet. “Well….”

“What would you like to do in our last few hours here?”

“You could come here”

She closed the minimal gap between them, and settled into his arms. They talked casually about the next two days, which would be spent with Alexander, and then they talked not at all -- she rested against him and closed her eyes. There would be plenty of time for more talk later.

Deanna tried not to think about what she would be facing, when she finally rejoined Mother and Alexander -- Mother had no doubt ignored her instructions, and even more redirection would be necessary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Christina Perri, Jar of Hearts and Sea of Lovers  
> P!nk, U + Ur Hand


	7. The Meltdown

Deanna dropped her bag on the foot of the bed. The new room, in the Selvona resort where her mother had reserved several rooms for all of them, was small -- about a third of the size of the one she’d had at the previous resort. No big broad windows, just a small one with heavy curtains to pull. The room was done in tans and browns, instead of the creams and golds of the previous ones.

“Cozy,” Jean-Luc commented.

She turned to find him standing close -- where else would he be, the room was that small -- and studying the bed, draped in red and brown coverings. The resort had had no other rooms left. He had agreed that they would share, insisted when she had suggested a different hotel -- as she did so now, again.

“You could find a different hotel.”

“Now you’re just being contrary. I’d never guess you were trying to get me to have sex with you, earlier today.”

She gave him the sly smile she knew he was angling to get, in return for the whimsical, sarcastic and sometimes blatantly-ridiculous things he’d been saying since they had left the other resort and traveled together on public shuttles across two time zones. The current resort was half across Lavonia, and it was midday here where it had been early evening for them before. She suspected he was trying to wrestle himself out of the discomfort that he felt here and there, as they danced through conversations that sometimes he wasn't quite comfortable continuing. And now he was being almost defiantly forthright.

“I think my bed aboard the _Enterprise_ is larger.” He let his bag slide to the floor, and headed into the door on their right. “There’s a tub, at least. A shower.”

“I could sleep in the tub,” she said.

“But then I would be cold. And lonely.”

“For someone who kept us from having sex, you’re being remarkably persuasive about getting us into a bed together. If I didn’t know better I’d suspect something.”

He came out of the bathroom and stopped in front of her, and looked at her soberly. His mood had shifted from flippant to serious.

“You can joke, but I can’t?” she asked.

“I was perhaps trying too hard. As I said, I’m not sure how to do this.”

“You’re not sure how to do normal.” Deanna leaned in and kissed his cheek. “Be yourself. Relax. Look at me and tell me what you want to do in the next eight hours, which is on this planet half a day. Go with me and Alexander, to the zoo, or… something else. We’ll be at the zoo for a couple of hours, and then we’ll return here and go skydiving.”

It shocked him more than singing and dancing had. He blinked. “You’re serious?”

Deanna nodded solemnly. “Alexander will love it.”

“I’m starting to mentally re-map everything you’ve ever told me about your time on leave. Wondering what euphemism you used for skydiving, and what else you’ve been doing when you claim you were meditating.”

“What haven’t you said about your adventures, when you were off duty and far from the ship?”

She didn’t expect him to react with frustration. Deanna hesitated, looking at the floor, dismayed by her behavior. She’d pushed too hard.

But he caught her hand, and leaned in to kiss her -- on the cheek. “It’s not that I don’t want to be open with you.”

“I know you, Jean-Luc. I know you aren’t comfortable with talking about some things, and I’m not going to expect it of you. I’m not your counselor and so I have no right to ask.” She smiled -- just a slight lean in, and she could put her arms around him. She felt his chin against her forehead, when he turned his head and raised his arms to reciprocate.

“What time are we leaving for the zoo?”

She spent a moment enjoying his embrace, grinning, “I’m going to get Alexander in a minute. I should talk to him before you join us.”

“Then I’ll wait here, until you get back.” After a moment, he chuckled. “You aren’t moving very fast.”

“I don’t want to move, actually.”

“I don’t talk about some of the things that have happened to me on leave because some of them….”

“I have things I’m ashamed of, or embarrassed about. You don’t know most of them yet. And I worry a little about what you’ll think, because you’re still the captain I work for, and with, and your opinion matters to me.”

He spent a moment sympathizing, and held her more tightly yet. “But skydiving is impressive. Can I come?”

“Of course. But Alexander is going tandem with me, so you’ll have to either go solo or choose an instructor to go tandem with.”

He stood back from her. She gave him a brief kiss on the lips, and headed out of the room. Mother had the suite down the hall, and when she knocked on the door, Homn opened it. He silently gestured for her to enter.

“Oh, Little One,” Mother sang out, flying across to hug her tightly. “It’s so good to see you!”

Deanna took a moment as her mother pulled away to look around the posh, well-appointed living area of a suite that her small room could fit into ten times over. “This is an amazing suite. With the resort as packed solid as it is, how did you manage to get this?”

“Oh, it’s not anything,” Mother exclaimed, waving a hand as if shooing a fly. “All I did was make a call. One of my dear friends owns the whole thing, that’s all. Alexander is napping -- he wore himself out this morning when we got back from the hot spring in the resort’s playground, running and sliding and swinging and doing the obstacle course -- you should have seen him running around!”

“I told you he needs a lot of exercise. You probably didn’t give him enough yesterday. If he doesn’t get enough exercise he gets extremely anxious and touchy.”

“Yes, yes, I listened. I was a mother, Deanna, surely you remember,” she scolded.

“I wasn’t Klingon, Mother, and it wasn’t the same at all. He’s all right?”

“Oh, of course! We’ve had a marvellous time!”

Deanna turned at an excited shout -- Alexander had woken up, probably at the sound of her voice, and ran out one of the three doors at the end of the room, flinging his arms wide and leaping at her. She caught him and held him tightly.

“It’s so good to see you,” she exclaimed. “Are you going to show me your souvenirs? I know you have to have at least one.”

Alexander pulled her by the hand to his room, showed her a stuffed animal that her mother had gotten him. One of the Lavonian animals -- some sort of ape, with gray and black fur. “I named it Moby,” he exclaimed, once again proving he was very young. She had no idea where he’d come up with that name.

Deanna sat on the end of his bed -- larger than the one she had, she noticed -- and smiled at him. “Alexander, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“If it’s about Captain Picard, I understand,” he said immediately with a serious expression.

“What are you talking about?”

“You want to be with him. That’s okay.”

Deanna tried to recover from the shock quicker. “It’s okay,” she echoed, questioning. “What makes you think this is about him?”

“You like him. He likes you. I can tell -- he looks at you that way.”

Well, no sense in delaying the inevitable, then. “Alexander, I know he does. But we’re friends, still. There may come a point where we will want to be more to each other. I’m not sure we’ll do that though.”

Alexander frowned -- he was sad, at that. “Why?”

“Because it’s hard, sometimes. He’s been in Starfleet all his life. I’ve been in Starfleet all of mine. Sometimes that makes it difficult. We have a job, that sometimes means we give things up -- officers try to have families, sometimes. But we know how hard that can be. We don’t want to be so torn, between safety and being with our families, and doing the things we swore we would do to protect the Federation.”

“I know,” Alexander said firmly. “But he likes you. He makes you happy. Why can’t you just be together?”

Deanna sighed, as quietly as she could, and thought about the conversation she’d had with him about his own parents -- he was clearly more aware of everything than she’d expected. “It’s just not that simple. It could be, but he’s not going to just do that. He knows that a lot of things might happen if he just did it, without taking care to figure out how to do it without causing problems for my career, or his.”

“If you’re both doing your jobs, why would anyone care?” He took Moby from her hands and went to place him on his pillow at the head of the bed. “Are we going to the zoo now?”

“Yes. Come on.” She took his hand, and they went together back out into the main room, where Mother was pouring a drink for herself. She was wearing the same dress, an understated (for her) gleaming red short-sleeved, ankle-length model that Deanna had seen before. “Are you coming with us, Mother?”

“Oh, no, dear, you two should run along -- I don’t care for skydiving or animals. Have fun, my little tiger,” she gushed, and gave Alexander a hug when he ran over to kiss her good-bye. Deanna smiled at her mother -- for once, she hadn’t objected or defied Deanna’s request to let them go without her, and it was a relief not to have to fight about it in front of Alexander. The day would be trying enough without her interference.

“All right, Mother. We’ll see you later.” Deanna held the door open while her little boy rushed through into the hall, and they strolled down toward the lift at the far end. “Do you mind if the captain comes along?”

“No -- does he like the zoo?”

“He wants to go skydiving with us.”

“I thought he was at a -- what did you call it?”

“He was finished with the archaeological expedition, so he asked me if he could come.” She stopped at the door to the room, and knocked on it. When the door opened, Alexander grinned up at Jean-Luc, who smiled uncertainly but rallied to say hello to the boy.

“Hi,” Alexander said, deceptively normal. Deanna was on the verge of telling him they were going when Alexander exclaimed, “It’s okay if you and Mom get together, you know.”

“Oh,” Jean-Luc responded. He managed not to sound shocked, or even befuddled. He gave her a raised eyebrow. “This is an interesting development.”

“You already are,” Alexander said. “Aren’t you? Grandma said this was Mom’s room.”

“It is, but he was waiting for us here because I asked him to, because I wanted to come get you, Alexander. Come on, let’s go.”

“This zoo, what do you know about it? I suppose I hadn’t thought there were any zoos, in the Federation.” Jean-Luc had to be resorting to distraction -- she didn’t think he cared about it one way or the other. They moved down to the lift together as he spoke.

“I think it’s more like a preserve than a zoo. They have animals from many worlds, but it’s a more natural setting than the name would imply. What is it, _tigryonak_? You seem confused.”

“I’m okay.” But he was gripping her hand like a lifeline, and leaned on her in the lift.

Jean-Luc pressed the button for the ground floor. The hotel’s system wasn’t so smooth as that of a Starfleet vessel. The floor lurched a little under their feet. “I wonder if Alexander wants us to talk to him about what’s going on.”

“He wants you and I to be together, I think.” Deanna gave him a tight-lipped smile.

“I want her to be happy,” Alexander announced.

“That doesn’t sound like such a bad thing. How would you know being with me would make her happy, though?”

Deanna looked away, at the ornate wallpaper, rather than watch this conversation unfold. Alexander didn’t disappoint her.

“She’s always happy when you’re with us. She looks tired, the rest of the time.”

“Maybe I’m just tired all the time,” she said with a fond smile. “And I just pretend not to be when we have guests.”

But Alexander shook his head slowly.

“My friends make me happy, you do too,” she said, stroking his hair. He’d brushed it at least once, perhaps. It was a little mussed. Mother had a habit of getting caught up to the point of neglecting little things like brushing his hair.

“It’s not unusual for officers to overwork themselves and not recognize how tired they are,” Jean-Luc said. “She’s a good officer, Alexander.”

“I know. She’s good at everything she does.” The calculating look Alexander gave the captain startled her.

“Alexander,” she warned softly. “We’re going to stop discussing this now.”

“Why?”

Deanna felt just as tired as Alexander thought she was, all over again. She wanted to address it but couldn’t find the words -- not in front of Jean-Luc. She felt so tongue-tied and helpless, in the lift with the two people she least wanted to hurt, to whom she wanted only to say the right things.

“I know you want to make her happy,” Jean-Luc said unexpectedly. “I want that as well.”

That had the boy’s attention in a second. “You do?”

“The thing is, people have decisions they need to make for themselves. You can’t decide who she wants to be with any more than I can. I’m sure you wouldn’t appreciate it if she made you marry one of the girls in your class?”

Alexander gaped at him. It was a valiant attempt, and Deanna thought it stood as good a chance as any, in making a difference. But she suspected it would have little real impact.

“I’m too little,” Alexander said, as if it was the silliest thing in the world. “I don’t want to get married!”

“Well, no one should force you to. Or anyone else, if they don’t want to.”

“But she likes you, and you like her. That’s what matters. Isn’t it?”

Jean-Luc gave her a look -- Deanna smiled at her little Klingon. The lift door opened on the first floor, and the semi-crowded lobby full of families was fairly noisy. “Let’s go,” she said, instead of giving Jean-Luc the help he’d nonverbally requested in the attempt to discuss complicated things with a very straightforward young boy.

They made it out front, walked along the front of the building -- one of the many public shuttles waiting at the curb was ready to take them, and Deanna closed the forward compartment after instructing the pilot. And then they were in a small compartment together, sitting in the first of two short rows of seats with only the hum of the shuttle instead of the chaos of the crowd.

“I’m particularly interested in the Vulcan species,” Deanna said apropos of nothing. “They have more than a hundred species of mammals, from fifty worlds.”

“Do they have any tigers?” Jean-Luc asked.

Alexander slumped in his seat between them, scowling.

Deanna sighed. “Alexander, what is it?”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” he exclaimed. “If you like each other why don’t you just be together? You’re on the same ship. It isn’t like my mother and father -- she didn’t want to stay with him.”

“I’m not going to force him to do anything he doesn’t want to do. He isn’t going to force me to do anything either. And you do not get to ask us for answers we don’t want to discuss with you, Alexander, because I don’t force you to talk about anything -- do I? I ask questions and if you don’t want to answer, I don’t make you do it. That’s a respectful thing to do. True?”

“I guess,” he mumbled, crossing his arms and sliding further down in the seat.

“We’re taking you out to have fun. Are you really going to do this, or do I have to tickle you out of this bad mood?”

Jean-Luc was thinking hard, watching Alexander pout, and glanced at her -- he wasn’t sure of whether he should say anything. She gazed into his eyes, and looked down at the little boy, and smiled happily.

“All right, Alexander,” she said softly. “I think you are correct. I think it’s that simple. So if the captain agrees, we can be together. But -- “ She had to put a hand on his shoulder before he could bounce up out of the seat. “Here’s the way it’s going to work. We aren’t going to live together. We aren’t going to get married, not for a long time anyway. And you can’t just go around telling everyone about it, because it’s our business, not anyone else’s, all right?”

“Okay! Does that mean he’s my dad?”

That was entirely predictable, and the excitement and enthusiasm was, too. “No, not at all,” she said smoothly, reaching for his head to pull him to her. “Remember I said we aren’t getting married? He would be a stepfather, if we did. But he’s not going to be your parent unless everyone agrees on that. And you can’t expect that to happen yet. These things take time, little tiger. You can’t rush it.”

“Okay,” he said, more quietly, disappointed, a little sullen.

Jean-Luc almost opened his mouth to say something, but she caught him before he could, glared at him. He got the message and said nothing. She hugged Alexander closer and leaned down to kiss his forehead.

“We’re there,” she said, as the shuttle shook a little. “Time for the zoo -- I hope you’re ready.”

When the side door slid back to let them out, Alexander popped up and leaped through first, yelling at them to hurry up as he jogged toward the entrance. Deanna let Jean-Luc step out and he turned to offer her a hand down.

“I offered him a scenario he could accept, but was easy for us to live up to,” she said quietly. “He’s not going to have a realistic idea of what it really means to be together, after all. I hope you didn’t think I was going to let him dictate our relationship.”

“Oh, no. I intended to spend more time with you, regardless,” he said. He had, she noticed, kept her hand in his after she’d stepped down from the shuttle. It was unsettling, because holding hands was not behavior she would expect him to exhibit.

They caught up to Alexander at the gate, where he had been stopped by an attendant. The three of them were guided to a spherical vessel large enough for four people. Deanna put Alexander in the front two seats and Jean-Luc joined her in the back two. And then they were rising from the ground, as the clear front of the sphere slid down into place.

“Fascinating,” Jean-Luc muttered, looking around them. “So we are the captives and the animals are free.”

“We’re safe, and the animals are free to act as they will, within the confines of the large enclosure they are in. This is technology we developed on Betazed,” Deanna said. “The wilderness areas use this type of vehicle for the observation of the wildlife. The exterior will be cloaked so the animals can’t even see it.”

“Unless they run into it?”

“I doubt that would happen. We’re not going that close to the ground.”

Alexander leaned forward as the sphere rose from the ground and began to glide forward across grasslands from the launch point. The vessel was clearly moving on a predestined route over the pens -- miles of habitat spread out below as they went along, and Alexander spent most of his time between the small screen identifying the different animals from worlds all over the Federation and leaning against the transparent wall of the sphere shouting about the animals. There were even targs, a large group of them wallowing in the mud around a pond.

Deanna glanced at Jean-Luc, and found herself watching him more than her little boy. He was fascinated, more so than she’d expected, and responding to Alexander’s eager recitals of facts about the animals when he read them off the screen. He pointed out things when Alexander missed them, and was the first one to see a bear -- large Alaskan brown bears were one of the creatures from Earth.

Near the end of the hour and a half floating above the zoo, Jean-Luc turned and noticed her scrutiny at last. He smiled at her, and reached over to put a hand on her knee. They sat smiling at each other for a few more minutes until Alexander shouted about a sehlat below them, in a desert biome.

When the sphere settled back into one of the docks and opened, the rush of cool air felt good -- Deanna stepped out onto the walk and sighed, as Alexander had leaped out and raced off. When she saw him disappear into one of the clearly-marked restrooms, she breathed a sigh of relief. That made sense.

“That was more enjoyable than I expected,” Jean-Luc said quietly over her shoulder. He followed her closely away from the sphere to a bench, joining her when she sat to wait for Alexander. The open patio wasn’t crowded, as people tended to head off to the left toward the exit immediately.

“I’m glad you enjoyed it. I think you might have liked the Terovian corsairs the most.”

“They reminded me of horses. But I think we wouldn’t enjoy riding them. Too many bony protrusions on the back.” To her surprise, he slipped an arm around her waist and let his fingers run up her spine, trace circles around her shoulder, and come to rest on her hip.

“Thank you for coming with us,” she murmured.

“He’s right -- you tend to be tired, these days. Since you took him on, I think.”

“I’ve spent a lot of my off time researching and reading more, hoping to do as Worf wanted,” she admitted. “There’s a reason I’m taking him on things that will increase adrenalin. Worf regretted a childhood where he was unable to learn how to control his own emotions and urges. Human practices don’t help Klingon physiology. Alexander needs more stimulation than human parenting provides, to learn how to manage his impulses. I expect that skydiving will be fun, but that when we land, he will have a meltdown. You will need to stand away and let me handle it.”

He was immediately concerned -- almost fearful. “But if you need help -- “

“It’s also necessary for me to be dominant, at this time. Trust the counselor, Jean-Luc.”

He gave her a look that said she was clearly not thinking straight, but nodded. She waited while he sorted out disbelief and frustration, and settled into acceptance, then leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. Which left him shocked, for a few seconds, but resulted in her being pulled up against him and kissed on the lips. Then it was her turn for shock, when it was more than a brief, affectionate peck.

When he pulled away, she took her hands from his chest where they’d ended up, and eyed him -- and realized the bathroom break was over. Alexander was staring at them, hands on his hips.

“We’re going to be late,” he exclaimed loudly.

“And just what makes you think they won’t wait for us?” Deanna said, rising to go, ignoring the smug, happy grin from the Klingon.

It was easy to get caught up in going to catch another public shuttle, and they found one with windows this time, so they could watch half a continent roll past beneath them on the way back to the resort. Just past the resort, there was an airfield, and the shuttle let them off outside the hangar she’d reserved an hour of time with, for the project.

The manager greeted them -- a smiling dark-haired man half her age, and that grin didn’t even waver though Alexander surprised him -- and hustled them into changing rooms, then into a waiting shuttle once they were wearing the black, form-fitting flight suits. There were the usual fittings and clips that went with parachuting, but the minute Jean-Luc emerged from his changing room she held her breath; for a few heart-thudding seconds she was reminded of when he had been Borg. But she took a great breath, and did her best to set aside that memory, smiling at him -- like his uniform, it showed off his broad shoulders, and he grinned at her as he approached.

“Interesting suits,” he said, touching a clip on her right shoulder.

“Did Greg orient you to the process yet?”

“He said we would all get a safety talk before we get on the shuttle. Even if you apparently don’t need that -- you didn’t say anything about having certifications.”

“I haven’t gone often, but sometimes I resort to the holodeck. Alexander, look at you,” she exclaimed brightly as the boy returned in the same suit as the two of them, only much smaller. He was grinning ear to ear and almost bouncing with every step.

The safety talk was a little longer than an excited Klingon could tolerate without wiggling, so Deanna spent her time redirecting him instead of listening. Greg demonstrated all the parts of the parachute and what the levers were for, and described the process of the jump.

“So Alexander is going tandem with you,” he said, pointing at Deanna. “So once we’re aboard we’ll get everyone in their gear and clipped up. You’ll be going tandem with Torrie,” he said, turning to Jean-Luc. “She’ll cue you when to pull the chute and show you how it all goes. After everyone’s landed, you’ll have the opportunity to go up for a solo jump -- that’s only if your mom agrees, Alexander,” he amended quickly when Alexander cheered and left the ground. “If she decides you handled yourself well enough on the tandem. This is not a good sport for impulsive people. Mistakes are pretty deadly. We don’t have people get hurt often, but when they do, it hurts a lot. Remember that and do what your mom says and you’ll have a bunch of fun, okay?”

“Okay,” Alexander echoed breezily. Deanna stifled a sigh -- he was so excited it wasn’t registering that Greg was serious. Well, she’d understood what she’d gotten into well enough.

The boarding process was short and so was the trip. The side door was transparent, and Alexander rode with his face almost plastered against it watching the ground drop away. Once the shuttle hovered at the correct altitude for the drop, Greg went about getting everyone clipped in and the chutes adjusted, which led to Deanna wearing a wiggling little boy she hushed repeatedly to get him to at least attempt to be still.

“You first,” Greg said, touching the panel. Deanna stepped up as the wind blasted into the open door, into her face, and she heard Alexander’s heavy breathing in the headset -- she paused, gave Jean-Luc a thumbs-up, and tipped out sideways.

Alexander was screaming -- she was glad to have the headset volume already set low. “Breathe, breathe,” she called into the mic, and spread her arms and legs to slow the fall. Air resistance was fun to play with at this altitude. With adjustments of her body she sent them sliding left, then right, brought in all her limbs and spun a little -- there was Jean-Luc with his larger companion, the tall Torrie, flying along just above them.

She straightened and dove down like an arrow for a bit, eliciting more screaming from her companion. “Are you having fun?” She had to shout over him, and hoped he would answer the question instead of continuing to feel simultaneously terrified and excited by the fall. He didn’t even hear her.

With her arms out, she sailed away to the right in the clear sky, wind whipping her cheeks into loose flapping folds, and tucked her head -- rolling into a complete somersault with her arms and legs wrapped around Alexander, then leveling out into a spread eagle for another minute before pulling the chute.

The bounce upward as the chute inflated wasn’t what Alexander expected -- he shrieked in alarm but recovered a little, as they started to float instead of having the wind trying to peel off their faces.

“How high are we? Where’s the captain? Can we do it again? Did my father ever try this? Do Klingons skydive? Let’s do it again!”

Deanna laughed, at him and his excited questions, as he saw things below and started to point and identify them, and looked around for their target -- a large red and white bullseye on the ground near the hangar they’d started in. She tugged the handles to adjust the chute, instructing him to watch what she was doing, to see how she was steering them around to land. And she instructed him to look down, as the target rapidly approached, to where her feet were, and put his feet out as well.

She hit the ground running and came to a halt free of the traces and the chute, which were sprawled out behind them. Unlatching Alexander’s suit from hers, she dropped to one knee to put him on his feet. The minute his shoes hit the ground he was off -- leaping, jumping, howling and cheering, he dove and rolled, jumped up, and ran at her full speed. She barely caught him in time to avoid being shoved over backward.

“Settle down,” she exclaimed, trying to catch his shoulders.

“Again! Again!”

“Alexander! BREATHE!” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the other pair touching down several hundred feet away. Finally, she got a good grip on the wiggling boy’s shoulders. “BREATHE!”

“I want to go again!” He shouted at the top of his lungs. She tore off the headset and the sun goggles, dropping them, and shook him, then again, only harder.

“Calm down,” she shouted back, sternly, attempting calm but loud.

“I WANT TO GO AGAIN! NOW!!”

Deanna pushed herself to her feet and glared down at him. She stood still as stone.

“Agaaaaaaain,” he screamed. And then he snarled, and charged.

It had to look like she was a horrible parent, the way she had to snatch him up in her arms and wrestle him down. But his little fists were flailing with real intent, and his shoe bounced off her shin, before she dropped and caught him as she came down with all her weight on him.

“You WILL BE calm,” she ordered, his hair in her face, while he wriggled and fought. “Only CALM people earn the right to wear a parachute. Only CALM Klingons are security officers. Control yourself!”

Alexander surprised her by spitting a few curses -- a few minutes later, he stopped fighting, then shocked her again by starting to cry. Deanna sat up, let go, then embraced him as he fell against her with a sob.

“I’m a bad son,” he blurted, clinging to her neck.

“Alexander,” she said, softly, then let him cry while she rubbed his back. Eventually, he wore himself out sobbing and was limp in her arms. Then they were sitting on the ground in the middle of the bulls eye together, while she held him at arms’ length and shook her head.

“Alexander, look at me.” She waited for him to do it -- he radiated shame and anger. But he looked her in the eye at last. “I knew that would happen.”

He started to yell, opened his mouth, but she tightened her fingers on his shoulders until she sensed she caused a little pain. It was enough to startle him a little.

“You need to learn to experience such feelings and deal with them,” she said soothingly, brushing his hair back from his face. “You got that way because of Klingon biology. I knew it would happen. It has nothing to do with being bad. It’s the way your body works. I am trying to teach you to be a good Klingon.”

“But I don’t want to be angry,” he wailed. “I don’t want to hurt you!”

“You wanted to hit me because you felt a great craving to experience it again, because your body is going to be that way. But if we start now and help you learn to control it, you won’t ever hurt me. Listen,” she insisted, giving him a little shake, sensing that he was now so distressed he wasn’t focusing. “I’m doing this to help you. Do you trust me?”

Repeating that so often over the past months had helped get him to the point that when she said it now, it would resonate. It helped calm him; he nodded slowly, gulped in air, did as she has reminded him to do almost constantly when something upset him.

“How do you feel?”

Deanna knew Jean-Luc had come over, and hovered nearby, anxious. Alexander gave no sign he noticed, however. The anxiety in his eyes was offset by the determination in the grim set of his mouth -- Alexander took another deep breath, nodded again.

“Calm, almost,” he said, sounding more like himself. She let go of his arms.

“We’re going to be all right. I’m going to help you control this. When you are calm, we will go up again, and if you can tell me how everything works on your parachute we will try a solo drop. If that goes well, we can use my holodeck program to practice it, and someday we will go skydiving again on another planet. Perhaps Betazed. But one step at a time.”

“Okay,” he said, smiling a little, taking another deep breath.

Deanna stood up at last, easing the bindings of the suit -- dealing with angry children was not something the harness was designed for, and it became restrictive in odd body positions. “How did you do?” She smiled at Jean-Luc, finally inviting him to join them.

“Torrie let me do all the work -- I’ve been cleared for a solo drop. If we’re going again,” he said as he took the last few steps toward them. “It looked like you were having fun.”

“I was,” Alexander exclaimed. He grinned and bounced in place. “It was fun! I was really scared, and then I was really happy!”

“We’ll go back inside, then, and get a drink. You’ll show Greg and I how you operate a parachute.” Deanna gestured at the hangar.

It was reassuring, she thought, watching Alexander go through the paces and remember each lever, each control, including the red toggle on the outside of his right thigh that would activate an emergency beacon to trigger immediate transporter lock and beaming him down to the hangar in extreme situations. He grinned at her when Greg gave him the go, and again as they returned to the shuttle. This time when the door slid back, Alexander nearly lunged -- but she held out a hand, and he was able to catch himself. A little frustrated, but he was breathing, as she’d taught him. He waited.

She gestured for Jean-Luc to go first. Once he dropped out of the door, she waved Alexander ahead, and followed him with a wave at Greg, looking back from the cockpit.

Without Alexander the fall was silent. She’d left the headset off. She glided, swooped, tumbled, flipped back to her stomach and angled over to Jean-Luc, startling him. Not wanting to send him off balance, she touched her fingertips to his arm and slid away a little, looking for Alexander -- the boy was spread-eagled and falling with an open mouth not far away. She leaned, edging closer, and waved both her hands to get his attention. They fell for a bit that way, looking at each other, and then she reached across to pat the ripcord, held up one, two, three fingers, and pointed, then pulled it.

The chute dragged her skyward and she saw that Alexander hadn’t pulled -- but after a few seconds she reached down to the small device tucked in a closed pocket on the front of her suit. Squeezing it popped the little boy’s chute without delay.

They drifted ever lower, spiraling down, and she caught sight of the other two by turns as she swayed gently in the breeze. Her toes touched the center of the target and she started to walk, unclipping the lines, as Alexander came down not far away. He managed to roll as Greg had instructed him to and then was tangled up, but she was there quickly to help him before he lost his temper.

Greg and Torrie were coming out to clap for them as she freed Alexander and got a hug from him this time, instead of a complete meltdown.

“Much better,” she muttered as she kissed his cheek. “My little flying tiger.”

\------------------

It took another three hours of travel, waiting, sitting down to a dinner she hardly tasted, and constant redirection to get them back to the right floor at the hotel. Alexander hugged Jean-Luc good-bye in the corridor -- a first, the captain had been shaking hands with the boy instead, but Alexander leaped and grabbed him before a hand could be offered. Deanna walked him into Mother’s rooms, intending to transfer him to Lwaxana’s custody for games and dessert.

“Grandma!” Alexander left the door at a run and crossed the room in a flash, to hug her as she turned from the communications console in the corner. “I went skydiving! I went twice! The captain said I did a great job!”

“Well, how lovely,” Mother exclaimed with her usual great enthusiasm. “And you had some dinner already -- you’re still wearing some of it, I see. Go change your shirt and we’ll play a game, dear.”

He ran off to his room and did so without delay. Mother gave her a look.

“He wants a father, Mother,” Deanna said wearily. “Surely you remember how angry I was, that none of the men you brought around were good enough to keep?”

“Oh,” Lwaxana exclaimed, waving her hands dismissively. “That was so long ago, my dear. And you’re nothing like me -- if dear Jean-Luc is so inclined to join you in unwedded bliss, I’m certainly the last person to criticize. I’m sure you’ll be as unhappy or happy as you wish to be.”

That was, for the uninitiated, a noncommittal thing for Mother to say. But years of Lwaxana’s subtle criticism left her sensitized to it -- it hurt, and Deanna turned to go without saying farewell to Alexander rather than letting him see her upset. Mother attempted telepathic contact then, regretting her words, but rather than let her soothe herself, Deanna blocked her out and stormed down the corridor toward her room.

Only, as she’d forgotten in her anger, Jean-Luc was already there. Taking off his shoes, while sitting on the small sofa in the corner of the small room. He was on his feet at once -- she put up her hands in surrender, and he stopped before he took a step.

“Do you mind if I take a shower? I feel like I ran with the sehlat today. I need to calm down.”

“Go ahead. If you trust me, I’ll get some drinks -- room service,” he said, plucking a padd from the couch.

“That would be lovely. Thank you.” Grabbing her bag from the foot of the bed, she went into the bathroom and spent a stupidly-indecent amount of time in the shower, letting water flow down her body and trying to meditate.

When she returned, wearing burgundy pajama bottoms and a soft, loosely-draped white shirt, he had a drink in hand and sat where she’d left him. She tossed the bag on the floor near the small closet and went to lean against him, nuzzling close and closing her eyes. He had procured a drink for her, but she needed this more.

It was nice, not having words and more words, questions, demands -- Jean-Luc simply put down the glass and held her, gently caressing her hair back from her forehead, until she sighed and started to talk.

“Mother thinks I should quit Starfleet,” she murmured.

“What do you think?” He sounded a little offended on her behalf. The full dose of inhibitor she’d indulged in to block out her mother’s anxieties kept her from knowing for sure.

“I think today went well enough. Alexander surprised me, being able to recover from the rush and the meltdown as he did. Mother didn’t instruct me to marry you and immediately have fifteen children, or attempt to persuade me to meet one of her friends instead. You had a good time, I think.”

“I did, until we came back here and discovered you weren’t. Does she do this a lot? Make you unhappy?”

Deanna pushed her face against the front of his shirt. She felt herself curling up against him. “She’s not always critical. It’s stressful for her -- Alexander has been on an adrenalin high since he got here, no doubt, and part of it is that -- she doesn’t mean to say things the way she does sometimes. But it’s an old, old wish, her wanting me to get married and have children already, and you’ll become acquainted with it soon enough firsthand, if you spend a lot of time with me. The frustration comes to the surface when she’s tired, and I’m tired, and other things are stressful.”

He didn’t respond. Possibly because there was nothing to say. She enjoyed being in his arms, and almost fell asleep there, proving how tired she really was, after almost nine hours of wrangling Alexander through the highs of the zoo and the skydiving. His weariness hadn’t kept him from being almost as wired at dinner, in the restaurant attached to the resort -- the endless supply of spaghetti at the buffet had been quite to his liking.

“You should be in bed,” Jean-Luc said at last.

“Are you as tired as I am?” She backed away and looked him in the eye, and had her answer. “I took inhibitor. But you look pretty tired.”

“It’s a good kind of tired, I think,” he said. “I surprised myself, enjoying the zoo. I haven’t been to one before.”

“There’s a lot of history in zoos. Some of the animals no longer exist, outside zoos.”

He sniffed, ran his hand over his head, and shrugged. “I think it was the company.”

“Alexander has endless enthusiasm for skydiving now. Did you enjoy it?”

Jean-Luc gave her a look that said very little -- he seemed to be appreciating her. “I suppose you have a holodeck program I can borrow?”

“Of course. We can go together, if you like.”

“Are we supposed to be anywhere in the morning?”

“We’re meeting our crewmates at the shuttle in sixteen hours, for the return to the ship. I plan to sleep for at least half of those hours. Alexander may spend it with Mother and I, if she has plans for something I might enjoy. You can join us.”

“I’m going to shower -- I’ll make my plans contingent on yours, if you don’t mind.”

After he closed the bathroom door behind him, Deanna climbed into bed. She sighed -- it was smaller than she’d anticipated. Curling up facing the door, she closed her eyes and rested.

She wasn’t quite asleep when he came out and climbed in with her. Glancing over her shoulder at him, she smiled wearily. “How do you like my leave so far?”

It was a slightly different question, intended to provoke him. “Is it the same as your other leaves, that you’ve had before?”

“Similar. It’s not always so active.” She thought about the very few incidents, some involving strangers, that she had had over the years and sighed. “I don’t always have such good company.”

Jean-Luc’s hand wandered along her waist, and then she found herself held against his bare chest. It was, she decided, a very good place to be. Before she thought about it she wriggled happily against him and realized there were a few problems with that behavior.

“Perhaps the next leave will be better,” he murmured, not letting her move away from him, despite the current circumstance.

“I could be persuaded to change my routine. Probably add some… different sorts of exercise,” she said, insinuating, and felt just the slightest twitch of the hard-on, against which her posterior had landed and he apparently had no issues with her leaning on.

“You could come out on a dig with me,” he said, as if his hand weren’t pushing her shirt out of the way to get to her bare midriff.

“Now, why would I do that?”

“Excavation can be exciting. With the right implement and proper technique.” His open hand held her pinned against him, then lifted slightly -- his right hand slipped between the mattress and her waist, asserting itself slowly and sliding up, until it found her breast.

“Are we discussing the next leave, or this one?”

He froze in place. She supposed, if she were able to live with herself, she might have given him another wiggle of the hip or perhaps started to talk about excavation again.

“I can sleep on the couch,” she murmured. “If I bend my neck a little.”

He started to laugh, and she joined him -- he rolled away from her and laughed some more. When she made to get up he grabbed her arm. “Not so fast. Get back here.”

It resolved in laying next to him in the bed, both of them silent. She ended up falling asleep with her cheek to his shoulder, and when she woke some time later the lights were off and they were once again spooned together, this time with his breath hot against the back of her neck. And then she couldn’t sleep. He snored. Quietly, but with a persistent regular buzzing noise.

“Be careful what you ask for, Deanna,” she said to herself.

“Engage,” he muttered.

Deanna held her breath, to keep herself from laughing. He started to snore again a moment later. Unable to resist, she whispered, “Sensors show a Cardassian vessel approaching.”

“Red alert,” he whispered.

Another moment of holding her breath, debating whether to imitate Q or her mother. She sighed, and settled for neither. Did he know he talked in his sleep? Then it occurred to her to wonder just how suggestible he really was. When he was snoring again, she exhaled slowly, and said, “What do you want me to know?”

He mumbled something indistinct. Too complex a question, she thought.

“I love you, Jean-Luc.”

It was probably a bad idea to include his name. It seemed to rouse him, the snoring that had almost started again came to a stop, and the arm he had resting across her torso tightened. He settled down almost at once, however, and she smiled, enjoying his presence. The inhibitor was gradually wearing off -- it had been about six hours, she thought. She was almost asleep when the snoring started again.

“Stop snoring,” she muttered.

He sighed, grumbled something about hot tea, and resettled with his hand on her navel. Once again, she was nearly asleep when the grating buzz sounded off again.

“Stop snoring -- that’s an order, mister,” she said, in a stern tone.

“Hm?”

“Go back to sleep,” she mumbled.

That time, she fell asleep before he could start it again.


	8. Captain Uptight and the Sordid Past

Deanna estimated it was about two hours after she’d vanquished the snoring when she woke up again, and knew she couldn’t go back to sleep. Her body stayed on Starfleet time, which was out of synchronization with the current time zone. The inhibitor had worn off, so she knew almost at once that most of the people within a couple of floors were still sleeping. That included Jean-Luc. As she sat up, another quiet buzzing snore confirmed that.

She had a slight headache. That would be thanks to two days of frequent inhibitor use. In the bathroom, she drank a cup of water and took an analgesic. She stared at her face in the mirror, her hair a complete mess, yesterday’s makeup smeared. She started to wash, removing streaks, and after dropping the washcloth she reached for her brush.

But in a few strokes she stopped, set the brush aside, and put her hands on the edge of the counter to lean on it. She thought about Alexander, on the tarmac yesterday, sobbing and insisting he was a bad child. She hadn’t done anything at the time but focus on him, but after her mother’s careless words, she had remembered her own pain at seven years old, her own hateful rants at her mother, whose loss kept her depressed and mostly disabled.

“Deanna?”

She inhaled sharply, snatched up the cloth again to return to cleaning up the last streaks of mascara. “Jean-Luc,” she answered as calmly as she could. “Did you sleep well?”

“I could have sworn there used to be a Betazoid in that bed. Keeping me warm.”

She shot him a sly smile, and rinsed the cloth. “I had a bit of a headache. And then I noticed all the makeup had migrated from where I’d put it. I suppose you don’t have that problem?”

“Not really.” He came to her side, and reached up to gently push her hair back from her face. “What’s wrong?”

Part of her resisted. Counselor Troi didn’t talk to clients about herself. But this was not a client any longer, it was a friend expressing concern, feeling the kind of affection that a man had for a woman he found attractive and had decided to focus his attentions on. Or, in short, this was Jean-Luc, trying to love her. Trying to understand how to help her, which was nothing she had a lot of, in her life. Most people paid no attention to cues that she needed help. Somehow he had noticed she wasn’t happy.

“Alexander’s trauma is a trigger, for me. I felt that way as a child. Like I was bad. That it was my fault, when my mother hurt. It’s a fairly typical thing for a small child to feel, thanks to those developmental stages most humanoids go through.”

His arm rested on her shoulders, and he kissed her temple. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m just a little sad. I’m fine.”

“Why did you look at me that way, when I came out after changing into the flight suit?”

She hesitated, her brush still. “What do you mean?”

“I thought you were afraid, for a split second.”

“The suit reminded me of when you were assimilated. It was similar in some respects.”

Deanna stared at the mirror. He was upset, but didn’t stop touching her; he leaned to kiss her again, this time on the nape of her neck, pushing her hair out of the way, running his fingers through it.

“Then I wasn’t the only one who found it triggering,” he murmured. “I thought you looked quite good in yours, however.”

“I’d thank you, but I’d prefer something more comfortable than a flight suit and harness, to feel sexy in. Something I can dance in.”

He chuckled. His lips brushed along the back of her neck, sending shivers through her. “I’d like to see you dance again.”

“I suppose I could oblige you. It’s easy enough to lock a holodeck.”

His mood shifted to pensive. “You really don’t think you could show this side of yourself, to anyone aboard?”

“I know that I cannot. I know that too much familiarity with your counselor can be detrimental to the therapeutic process. You told me once that you were unable to be so informal with crew, for similar reasons. Do you suppose, if I had confessed to you all my silly habits and mistakes at the onset of counseling, that you would have any confidence in my ability to help you?”

“You’ve always helped me. You’ve never failed to do so.”

“And now you are defending me, to myself, because you feel as you do. You have a strong bias. I appreciate your bias. I could even say that I love your bias. It perhaps leads me to gain new appreciation for… excavation.”

“Oh, here we go,” he muttered, grinning.

“You do have a nice tool.”

He started to laugh -- not exactly embarrassed. Disbelief, perhaps. “I’m going to order breakfast -- any specific request?”

“I trust you.”

“Hmmm,” he responded, and as she turned her head to look at him he caught her in a kiss.

This was a different kind of kiss. Needy, almost demanding, not at all the tentative touch he’d had before. This was something she hadn’t really sensed in him --

No, she couldn’t say that. She’d sensed it some time ago, several years ago in fact, when he’d returned from that fateful holiday on Risa -- the captain had tidied himself up quickly, emotionally, upon his return to the ship. And then he’d met Vash again, when she had come aboard -- she remembered the chemistry they’d had. She had an excellent memory of the range and quality and quantity of the emotions of all her clients, most especially the ones to whom she had given intensive, prolonged attention. This was something new, for her, but not for him. The expression of some part of him that usually slumbered while he was aboard his vessel, in command, whether he was on duty or about to be on duty -- those were the two states of being that Captain Picard allowed himself.

When she automatically turned to him, opened her mouth a little wider, opened her mind and slipped her arms around his ribs, sliding up so he felt her hard nipples through her shirt against his muscled chest, she got the response she anticipated -- the sensuality coiled in wait sprang up and he pushed, his tongue diving deeper, his hands under her shirt in a second and sliding along her ribs, up her back, exploring even as he tore the shirt upwards over her head. His mouth had to leave hers for a second but after the shirt was tossed aside, he returned intently to its quest for further study of her molars. One hand went to her back, sliding lower, fingers moving into the waistband of her pants; the other found its way to her head, gently threading his fingers into her hair.

Deanna was the first to break it off, and though he had difficulty doing it he let go as she pushed away -- he was intensely disappointed. So was she, in fact. But there were sometimes necessities in life.

“I need to -- “ she gestured at the toilet. “Sorry.”

“Oh. Well, then.” He pointed at the door, just before he went through it, and closed it behind him politely.

When she emerged at last, not only relieved and cleaned up but wearing a dress, just a green sheath she’d packed in a corner of her bag just in case, he had the small table covered with breakfast and a cup in coffee in hand, as he sat with his back to the window. A little light filtered through the curtains to light the back of his head.

“We have something in common, you know,” she said as she sat down and reached for the carafe to pour herself coffee.

“Something I don’t know about?”

“You and I share a certain difficulty with more intimate encounters.”

“We do?” He put down the cup and faced her seriously.

“A certain impulsivity, being prone to letting ourselves be carried away with passionate encounters with someone with whom we feel a particular… resonance.”

He appeared to be studying a plate of croissants. “That would seem to me a statement of the obvious.”

“I wanted to acknowledge that out loud, as a precursor to explaining that my issue is as you observed -- I tend to dive in whenever I find that resonance. However, I also think that in your case it’s offset by the fact that we know each other as well as we do. So I want to tell you a few things that I haven’t, because -- “ Deanna paused, a little frustrated with the difficulty she seemed to have with words, sometimes, with him. “Because they are things I think you need to hear, I suppose.”

“Is this more impulsive behavior?”

“The opposite, really. I wonder if you won’t be angry at me.”

He frowned, chewing his croissant. “You did something I won’t approve of?”

“It was never relevant to duty, or counseling. I don’t make a habit of simply telling friends about such things. I have… a holodeck program.”

It piqued his interest. “An illicit program, full of naughty things?”

She laughed -- the last thing she would expect him to say, with the mischievous glint in his eye. “Fantastic, naughty things that would make you blush.”

It was a challenge, and his head came up, the confident -- no, cocky -- smile she knew well appearing. “Really.”

There were things that sent him into embarrassed, flustered backpedaling -- her mother on his bridge, being thrown into situations where traditional Starfleet protocols were inadequate, and any impingement of personal issues into professional endeavors. His counseling sessions had not revealed much insight into this, but she had long suspected past issues with personal relationships, with other crew. She wondered, again, if she were making the correct choice, in this. But this reaction was new. She wasn't in familiar territory any longer.

“I never use representations of people I know,” she went on, doggedly, keeping her voice even. “But there have been times -- “ She hesitated, mouth open, remembering. “I used to try to block what I sensed, when people engaged in sexual activity. Then I made the program and used -- I used to attempt distractions, still do at times. It hasn’t been a constant thing, like everyone my moods come and go. When I understood how you felt -- about me, and then you were engaging in -- I suspected it was me, you were thinking about. I couldn’t simply resist that forever so -- “

He sat so still, his hands in his lap, staring at her and feeling overwhelmed.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

It startled him. He stared -- and the smile came back, slowly.

Nervous, she reached for the cream, added a little to her mug.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever used the holodeck that way,” he said. “I can see how it might… help you with that particular issue.”

“I had encounters, as many people do, while on leave. Brief, transitory. But leave doesn’t happen often enough. Tension relief is problematic, for me, given the nature of a starship. I don’t have the option of casual sexual relationships on board as some do.”

It was an unfortunate reminder of Will. She could tell it was on his mind as well, from the anger that flitted through him. But he reached over and put a plum on her plate, passed over a bowl of yogurt, and she smiled at his attempt to feed her.

“I know you don’t approve of shipboard affairs,” she said. “Not the casual kind, anyway, and especially not on the part of senior officers.”

“You told me once you believed that I would be able to have a relationship with a subordinate.”

Her turn to raise an eyebrow at him. “I never said those words. You did a song and dance around it, asking me if you asked my permission, would I give it to you. Of course I said yes.”

“Because you aren’t going to tell me not to do something you already know I’ll do anyway?”

She indulged a puckish smile. “Are you about to ask me again?”

“I thought about asking the counselor, once I was back aboard.”

Deanna added a handful of berries to the yogurt. “You don’t seem very concerned about that, but perhaps this is what you do on leave, step out of the captain completely?” She glanced anxiously at him. Speaking without thinking had caused him discomfort before.

This time, he didn’t feel the discomfort. Her initial dismay faded. He did think before he spoke, however. “My concerns are for you.”

“Perhaps you should ask the counselor if I’m able to have a relationship with you, without an impact on my career?” When the double take happened, she gave him another sly smile.

“Why,” he began with a chuckle, “I believe I’ve completely misjudged. I’m beginning to think I’m being outmaneuvered.”

“Jean-Luc?”

He stopped being amused, as he thought a while longer, and ate another croissant. “Do you foresee any issues?”

“Oh, Jean-Luc, please stop overthinking this,” she exclaimed. “The only issue with relationships that you’ve ever truly struggled with is uncertainty.”

It took him aback. He gazed at her with the sort of surprise he usually reserved for archaeological discoveries -- he smiled and looked away, thinking a little more.

“What?”

“I may not have told you everything, in counseling,” he said.

“Really,” she said flatly, crossing her arms.

Jean-Luc laughed again, putting his hands on his head and leaning back, completely at the mercy of his amusement. “Sorry, I know, I know,” he exclaimed. “Bad client trauma.”

“You weren’t a bad client. I often -- “

He guffawed, but noticed her expression then. She regretted saying anything at all -- she should have let his words go unanswered. “Deanna?”

“Sometimes I felt that I failed you,” she admitted, sticking with her determination to be honest with him.

Of all things, that had to be the one that struck him the hardest. He gaped at her as if she’d announced her plan to take over the Federation. “No,” he exclaimed, anxious.

“I feel -- “ How to put it into words -- how to say it without sounding incredibly self centered. “My work is always behind the scenes. Counselors don’t get commendations for being good therapists. The times that I have been called upon to be an officer, I felt so inadequate -- it’s just not… I feel invisible sometimes. It’s not as though I really want to stand up and receive a medal, but I was pushing myself so far out of my comfort zone. In retrospect, I suppose I can see that it wasn’t all that unusual. It merely felt that way because it was not within my usual scope.“

“Have I been so negligent that I haven’t told you how much I appreciate what you’ve done?”

“Maybe it’s that I’m feeling… stalled. In my career.”

“Have you considered taking the bridge test?”

Deanna took a moment to chew and consider that. “I don’t think I would be able to pass it. I’ve never been any good at engineering. There’s a section on that.”

“You don’t have to be an engineer to pass it. How do you know you won’t pass it, if you haven’t tried?”

She watched him sip coffee. “Why are you angry at me?”

Now he was upset about something else. Leaning forward, he put aside the cup and reached for her arm. “I’m not angry at you. Myself, for not realizing -- why haven’t you told me about this before?”

“I don’t talk about me, on duty.”

“I’m beginning to see that you have neglected yourself, actually, in surprising ways. You’re good at encouraging everyone but yourself. I had no idea you felt so inadequate.”

She gazed at his hand, on her bare arm, and steeled herself. “Everyone feels that way, from time to time, including you.”

“Yes. I find I’m feeling that way a lot, in the past few days.”

Deanna caught herself before she could leap up and flee -- she looked him in the eye, instead. “That’s a different sort of thing, isn’t it? It’s hardly been just you.”

“I don’t understand. You haven’t seemed -- ”

“But you never seem that way either, do you?” she said when he couldn’t continue.

As he stared at her with growing anxiety, she wondered if she hadn’t just damaged things between them. Perhaps he had been relying on her confidence to shore up his own?

“I know I keep telling you to relax,” she said, picking up the other half of the croissant she had been nibbling. She started to pick at it, putting a shred at a time in her mouth. “I’m telling myself, too. But I wouldn’t be here with you if I didn’t feel the way you do, Jean-Luc. And I’m not about to let anyone tell me I’m making a mistake -- if there’s anything I’m certain about in all of this, it’s you -- I love you, and I don’t care if you think that’s a premature statement to make, because it’s just the way it is.”

Jean-Luc slumped in his chair, head in hand, propping his elbow on the table between the coffee and the bowl of fruit. He had a difficult time settling himself down, judging from the little she sensed through her own intense feelings. He stood up unexpectedly and held out a hand, which she took, following his lead when he tugged her to her feet. And when he kissed her, she closed her eyes and surrendered.

But it wasn’t the same kiss as before, earlier that morning. He put his arms around her and she floated -- warmth and joy flooded her. His lips brushed hers again, and her cheek. She felt his chuckle reverberate in his chest.

“Shut up and sing,” he murmured.

“Precisely,” she said with a smile.

“Except there are elements of this that I don’t have to pretend, certainties, and one of them -- an important thing, if not the most important -- is as you say, not a premature statement.”

“You can’t say it?”

She felt the stiffness in him -- the tension traveled slowly along his body like a wave.

“I used to say it too much,” she whispered, sliding her hands up the front of his shirt, over his shoulders, around his neck. “I stopped. I said it to friends, at times, and meant it quite platonically. I haven’t told anyone for a long time, until you. I’ve managed to tell you twice, or is it three times now?”

“Do you want me to say it?” The words tickled her ear, and her fancy, spoken as they were with a warmth that made the statement without needing the actual words to go with them.

“Have you ever?”

Another wave of tension traveled through his body, held against hers, once again. She took a step, her toes overlapping his bare feet. She bowed her head, chin to his shoulder, and splayed her fingers over the back of his head to keep him close, bring his head in until she felt his nose against the top of her ear.

“It doesn’t matter,” she muttered, swaying slightly with him. “We are not what we were, in the past. We are more than the sum of our experiences. And we can be something else, if we like.”

“I’ve been outmaneuvered,” he said with a sigh.

“You are easily distracted with bodily contact. If you would like to talk seriously we could move to chairs on the opposite sides of the room.”

“I think you are talking too much.”

Moving her head slightly brought her lips to his, and she moaned, passing the vibration to him. “Are you sure you want to stop talking?”

“You sound quite sure of yourself, for someone who claims insecurity.”

“You can keep talking like this, all day. It’s quite arousing.”

It led to him taking a step backward and almost glaring at her. Deanna shook her head and kept herself from reaching for him again, letting her hands fall at her sides. She almost asked what was wrong but supposed it was enough that he had simply decided to stop, for whatever reason. And it was as before -- she tried not to feel disappointed, at the loss of the pleasurable sensations of having him in her arms, with the attraction and affection vibrating between them.

“Okay,” she said, picking up one of the plums and turning to consider what should be next. Alexander had just awakened, apparently. She found herself checking on him automatically, as her thoughts turned from the disappointment.

“Deanna.”

“I’ll put up my hair. We can go -- perhaps Alexander would like to come with us, to the museum.”

The steps toward the bathroom faltered, at the touch of his hand on her shoulder. “Stop. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” She hated the tears in her voice.

“What you said -- reminded me, of something else,” he confessed. “One of those things I never told you in counseling.”

Deanna sat on the end of the bed and took another bite of her plum. “I should have known I was being pushy, you kept saying that I was being manipulative, I shouldn’t have -- “

“No,” he blurted. “No, not at all. I was teasing, it wasn’t -- “

When he couldn’t continue, she smiled sadly at his knees, unable to look him in the face. “I suppose I’m terrible at this, as well. Plenty of evidence of that, if you think about it. What a cliche I have become. Counselors tend to be terrible at relationships, even the successful ones who help most of their clients.”

“Stop,” he exclaimed. The anguish in his tone was enough to bring her eyes up. At once, she sat up and reached for him. His hand came up to take hers. She stopped, waited, looking up at him, recognized the sinking feeling he had.

“It’s all right,” she said quietly. “I’m not upset -- I’m the last person to be upset about your past traumatic encounters, Jean-Luc. I understand. It stung, but I’m not going to collapse or run away from you because of this.”

Jean-Luc pivoted to sit next to her, and before she could say anything she was in his arms again. Pitching her half-eaten plum aside, she returned the embrace. It was more about comfort than anything else -- she found herself leaning her head on his shoulder, and being gently rocked while he tried to settle down again.

“Perhaps I should take down a list of things not to say,” she said at length.

Dark amusement, at that. “No. I’m going to learn not to panic, and leave the past in the past. You aren’t -- “ It hung him up, for a moment. “You’re nothing like Vash.”

“Oh, I doubt that you can say that -- female, dark hair, not afraid to tease you, I could go on. I doubt you would have an attraction for someone who -- “

“I thought Counselor Troi was on holiday?”

They pulled apart, and she patted his thigh. “I share a few characteristics with her as well. Quite a few more, actually. Seriously, I know what you were trying to say, Jean-Luc, and I can appreciate it, especially since you let me defend you against her.”

He smiled, seeming recovered from most of the angst, though there was a troubling level of tension left in him. He raised his hand, touched her cheek, brushed her hair back behind her ear, and she sensed the return of desire -- the urge to kiss her.

“I love you,” he said instead.

Deanna blinked -- rather than jumping headlong at him, she returned the smile. “I love you.”

They both jumped a second later, at a hammering on the door.

“The gentle knock of a Klingon,” she said, sighing. “I’ll have to teach him how to be a good Vulcan, next. They don’t beat down doors.”

When she opened the door Jean-Luc had returned to the breakfast table and refilled his coffee, and Alexander merely took a seat to reach for the fruit. “Good morning, Captain,” he cried exuberantly.

“Good morning. Did you know there’s a museum of technology here?”

\--------------

The hours on the shuttle were easier to whittle away if she spent part of them sleeping in one of the bunks in the back. Chasing Alexander around the museum reminding him to breathe and listening to her mother not-tease Jean-Luc had taken away any benefit of what rest she had actually managed to get, on leave.

“Are you asleep?”

Deanna opened her eyes and found Beverly hovering with crossed arms. “I could be,” she said acerbically.

Beverly rolled her eyes and took a seat on the opposite bunk, bumping her head on the edge of the upper one. “You don’t look like you had much rest. Is everything all right?”

“Alexander did wonderfully, skydiving. I hope he continues to respond that well to me. He wore out Mother, she didn’t ask to come back to the _Enterprise_ with us, much to the captain’s relief.”

“How is that going?” Beverly was no good at hiding curiosity or mercenary smiles. “With Jean-Luc? He looks just as tired as you. But he’s not back here sleeping, and that’s odd.”

“I’m sure he’s fine.” Deanna closed her eyes.

“Something changed between you.”

“We’re in love. I’m sure there will be a dozen children, and a lovely house with a white picket fence.”

Silence, and some fuming frustration, told her it had had the planned effect. “Deanna,” Beverly exclaimed at last.

“I’m rebounding from inhibitor and exhausted from wrangling a little Klingon through a museum while successfully keeping him from knocking out a security guard who made a snide comment about him. If you would like girl talk, let me have some sleep until I feel less like a corpse and more like a girl.”

“I’m really starting to worry about you. You sound less and less like yourself all the time.”

The genuine concern was enough -- Deanna sat up slowly so as not to hit her head, though she wasn’t likely to, not being that tall. “I’m sorry. It’s been more difficult than I anticipated, with Alexander.”

“And?”

Deanna glanced at the closed compartment door. Beyond it, she sensed the others -- Alexander had to be taking a nap, still, in the chair he’d been in for the past three hours. He’d refused to come back and use a bunk. “And the collected archaeologists from the dig were staying at the resort I chose, and so I didn’t get to meditate for thirty-six hours.”

Beverly went sober, her head striking the top bunk again as she straightened in surprise. “He was there?”

“It was almost horrible,” she admitted. “But -- “

“Well, you can’t just stop there!”

“I can’t talk about this, you know that.”

“Why not? I already know about his sordid past,” she exclaimed. “I know what he was like before he turned into Captain Uptight. I met Vash, and I don’t remember how many of his flings, that he never talks about, though I’m sure there were others I never knew about. I can’t even fault him for being the way he is, honestly. There’s not really anything -- Deanna?”

She didn’t care any more. Flopping down on the bed, she rolled toward the wall, and resolutely closed her eyes.

“I’m sorry. Whatever it was. Deanna?”

“I’m too tired to talk about this,” Deanna said wearily. “Later. Please?”

She heard the door open and close. It couldn’t have been long, when the sound of it opening again woke her up. She refused to move.

“I’m not sure what happened, but it’s safer in here, at the moment,” Jean-Luc said. “I suspect it was something I did.”

“What?” She rolled on her back and found that he’d settled on his back on the other bunk, across from her, arms resting on his chest. “How could she be angry at you?”

“She wanted to know what I did to upset you.”

“Oh, no, not at all -- she came in here wanting me to tell her everything, and I’m just tired. I tried to tell her that. Not that I’m going to talk to her about us.”

She expected relief, not confusion, from him. “I thought she was one of your best friends.”

“She is. But why would I tell her absolutely everything about us, when…. You’re still the captain. And I don’t really know everything she knows about you, or how much you would be comfortable having her know.”

It wasn’t rational, to be upset. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. But she wished Beverly had left her alone, and that she could set aside the anger, that there was history between the two of them she couldn’t really understand. Because neither of them had ever talked about it -- Beverly sometimes hinted at things, as she had just done, but in passing.

Deanna glanced across at him again, and discovered the reason for the abnormally long silence. He’d fallen asleep.

Well, all right, then.

Long months of stifled feelings, her selfish ex-fiancé, his old flings, drunken near misses, broken kneecaps, adopted Klingons, awkward conversations, old childhood trauma, Mother's passive aggression, and other near-disasters be damned.

This would work out eventually, after they both caught up on sleep.

Maybe.

No -- that was the end of uncertainty. There would be talk, and kissing, and probably sooner rather than later, sexual congress.

Deanna made a mental note to actually schedule the bridge test, with Data, and rolled over to go back to sleep.

A long, quiet, buzzing snore squashed her attempt. Grabbing the flat pillow she’d been trying to bunch up under her head, she flung it across over her shoulder without looking. She heard it thud into something, and flop to the floor. Resolutely, she closed her eyes.

“Hm?”

“Go back to sleep.”


	9. The Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part of the episode Thine Own Self and Eye of the Beholder are context for the next few bits. 
> 
> The episode Eye of the Beholder makes a hash of itself -- no clear indication of where Troi’s hallucinatory experience really begins or ends, or if it was stopping and starting as she went along. It’s where the show hooks up Troi with Worf. Some of the hallucinations don’t make a lot of sense, if you think about what supposedly happened with Pierce and the other two instead of the episode. Time will tell if I handle it any better.
> 
> Obviously a lot changes, in the story, since Worf isn't around.

Deanna arrived in her office with a heavy sigh of relief, and went about reviewing her schedule. The shuttle had docked fifteen hours ago, allowing her adequate time to recover before the first shift back. Getting Alexander to wind down had been relatively easy -- he’d still been sleepy, after napping for hours, and groggily walked the corridors home to fall into bed. It meant he was up early, but he’d kept himself occupied organizing his homework until she rose to get breakfast for them.

She’d left the first two hours of the shift free, to get herself re-oriented, so when the annunciator went off, she admitted the captain without delay. “Good morning,” she exclaimed, rising from her desk to greet him.

He had an anxiety about him this morning, but smiled at her and sat down with her on her sofa.

“Everything all right?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, thank you,” she replied happily. “Alexander finally calmed down completely. He slept through the night as far as I know. And so did I.”

“I was hoping you would bring him over for dinner.”

Deanna grinned. “Well, I suspect he’ll be at Bo’s tonight. He wants to tell him all about his adventures with Grandma.”

That made Jean-Luc happy -- she knew he had had moments of frustration, in the hours they’d spent with the boy. And she completely understood. Alexander was a high maintenance child, and she’d felt relief at having time apart from him as well. She wouldn’t expect him to have a high tolerance for any child, and appreciated the time he’d spent with them already.

“Good, I’ll expect you at eighteen hundred, then. There will be a staff meeting this morning, by the way.”

“I’ll be there.”

Jean-Luc paused, and looked down, at nothing in particular. Then he glanced at her, serious now. “You’re not….”

Smirking, she crossed her legs and shook her head. “I’m not upset, not traumatized, not at all changing my mind.”

“I got to thinking… this morning, when I woke. About everything. We didn’t have a chance to talk, after we docked and left the shuttle, and I slept all the way back. It sounds….”

“Almost as ridiculous as some of the other things we’ve been through? I suppose if I told you I went on leave, went drinking, dancing and sang on stage, then wandered the beaches in a bikini, went skydiving, spent time with my son, it would all sound normal enough. Until I added in the broken kneecap, the dirty scientist who hit on me, who ran off with your former lover, and then we shared a room -- and a bed, and breakfast, almost made love how many times and kept talking ourselves out of it -- I suppose it’s better we didn’t, my mother would have recounted it back to me. I know better than to have sex within a mile of her.”

He was chuckling through it, but at the last sentence went cold sober. “You’re… teasing me?”

Deanna hunched her shoulders a little, and inclined her head toward him. “The times you’ve met her, she’s been relatively well behaved. She just teases while she's here. If you want, I can tell you stories about the really outrageous things she has done.”

“I’d rather spend our time doing more pleasant things, I think.”

“Excellent choice.” She nodded in approval, and considered, but went on anyway. “I’m having lunch with Beverly.”

He gave her a dubious look. “And you’ll talk to her about leave.”

“Probably. Not likely in great detail.”

“Good. Everything back to normal, then. See you at the staff meeting.” 

They stood up together, and she watched him head for the door. He hesitated, but went on without turning back. Fifteen minutes later, her first appointment of the day arrived. She greeted Giles and asked him to have a seat. 

Her internal clock had long ago been set to the therapeutic hour, so she knew when his time was up without checking. She gave him the introductory information for hypnosis, recommended some reading, so he could make a choice as to whether he wanted to give it a try. He already indicated he was open to it, so she set another appointment to begin. As he left her office, she went to her replicator and got a third cup of coffee, and carried it with her on the way to the bridge.

She came into the lift to find Data and Geordi in it already. “Good morning,” she said cheerfully.

“Good morning, Deanna,” Data replied. “Did you enjoy your leave on Lavonia?”

“Yes, thank you. It’s a beautiful place -- you ought to visit sometime. I’m sure Alexander would love to tell you all about the zoo.”

“I think I was there once,” Geordi said. “Don’t they have a museum where they show the history of the warp engine?”

“I think so. I took Alexander to a museum, but I was a little more focused on keeping him out of trouble than on exhibits.”

They filed into the observation lounge. Beverly smiled up at her tentatively, her doubt disappearing when Deanna smiled back at her. Deanna sat between the doctor and the first officer, and sipped her coffee, watching McCormick arrive. And then the captain, strolling to the head of the table. 

“We’ll be taking on medical supplies at starbase 328 -- there is a crisis on Barson Two, and we need to get there as quickly as possible to deliver them.” He glanced at Beverly.

“The situation looks pretty bad,” she said. “We’ll need to allocate three of the cargo bays. There are four tons of supplies, antibiotics and regenerators, biobeds -- we’ll have to have stasis units, to protect some of the medications.”

“Mr. LaForge will assist. Mr. Data?”

Data gave a curt nod. “I would like to discuss with you the candidates for my old position, sir.”

Deanna glanced at Geordi, and remained composed and silent. This wasn’t going to be one of the meetings in which she participated, clearly. She glanced at Beverly, who gave her a tight smile. The mission was time sensitive, but straightforward enough. Hardly any stress for the doctor since the supplies were to be dropped off. 

After they were dismissed, she stuck with Beverly on the way out, up the bridge into the lift, and Data and Geordi stayed behind, still discussing staffing. Rearranging the staff took some discussion, especially with a promotion in the offing. 

“Feeling better today?” Beverly asked.

“Much. I’m sorry I was so terse yesterday.”

“You looked like you were on the verge of tears, actually. Exhausted. I was about to force you into sickbay.”

The lift opened a few moments later, on deck ten, and they walked together toward the lounge. Ten Forward wasn’t so busy as it was still early. Deanna had counted on that. If she was really going to talk to Beverly, it was better without a lot of people around. They greeted Guinan and went to a table near the viewports. 

“Jean-Luc said he had a wonderful time,” Beverly said, picking up her spoon as she looked at the bowl of soup Guinan had brought her. 

“I enjoyed myself,” Deanna said noncommittally. “Most of the time.”

Beverly’s spoon hovered over the soup as she stared across the table. “Want to talk about it? You have that sad look again.”

Deanna put her hand to her forehead. The headache was long gone, but she could feel a band of tension across her forehead starting. “I just -- “

Beverly waited, sympathetic. She rested her hand on her chin and smiled a little, trying to encourage. 

“It was just one of those things. I took the inhibitor, and then everything went as usual. I went swimming, I went out to eat. I had a drink. I danced. I heard Vash laughing, I ignored the archaeologists -- “

“What?” Beverly interrupted as she recovered from the shock. “Vash?”

“I was determined not to care and to just be there, by myself, resting. Get a massage. I left the restaurant area completely, walked across the complex to my room. And he was there, waiting for me on the patio outside my room.”

Now that she was talking about it, Beverly was eagerly waiting for the rest of the story, starting to eat her soup but mainly focused on her words, blue eyes trained on Deanna’s face intently.

“We were both inebriated. We talked… I fell in the bathroom and broke my kneecap.”

Beverly dropped her spoon and put her hands over her eyes, shaking her head slowly. “That sounds terrible,” she said, letting her hands fall to the table. “Reminds me of the time you had the concussion while you were on Shiralea, when you fell off the ladder at Tamble Falls.”

“Oh, you had to remind me -- I never saw Kevin again, after he got me to the hospital.” Deanna made an attempt to eat, but hardly tasted the mouthful of salad. “Jean-Luc called in the resort’s doctor. And then he stuck around -- wanted to sure I was all right. I suppose I was feeling the alcohol more than he was. I think I startled him.”

“That’s not surprising. It’s the way it goes. No one wants to let their hair down around the captain, especially Captain Uptight.” Beverly ate a little soup before the thought occurred. “So what happened to Vash?”

“He was gone in the morning. I thought he probably went to the dig -- he was supposed to spend the entire leave there, after all. But he came back -- went and got his things, returned to my room, and she followed him there. He was extremely annoyed by it, telling her to go away, so I came out of the bathroom naked and said hello.”

When Beverly finished laughing, composed herself, she attempted another spoon of soup but started to giggle again. “Oh, my -- I would pay to have been there! Did she leave?”

“Without a word.”

Beverly lost a lot of the amusement. “And what did he do?”

Deanna ate a few more bites of salad, drawing it out. Not looking at her friend.

“Deanna,” Beverly said at last, a little irate.

“We went to the restaurant for breakfast. We took a walk. He came with me to get Alexander, and then went with us to the zoo. He went skydiving with us, and he liked it. He put up with Mother, when we took Alexander to the museum.”

“So essentially he bailed out of his opportunity to get dirty and find priceless objects of antiquity to spend the time with you? My god,” Beverly exclaimed, with a shake of the head. “Do you realize what you’re saying?”

“When you put it like that….”

“Deanna, he’s never done this before.”

“You’re saying he’s in love with me? I could have told you that before I left the ship.”

Beverly abandoned the soup, moved around the round table to the chair close enough to put a hand on Deanna’s arm. “Honestly, how are you?”

A handful of operations staff came in and went to the bar. Deanna glanced at them and turned to the doctor. “We shouldn’t talk about this here.”

They abandoned Ten Forward, with a wave to Guinan, and headed out the door -- Deanna found herself following the doctor into her office in sickbay. She had been in and out of Beverly’s office often enough over the years that no one likely suspected they’d had plenty of conversations about non-work-related subjects in there. 

“Has he figured it out yet?” Beverly asked, as she returned with a couple of cups of tea and put them on the desk. 

“Long before he said anything.” 

“Why in the world do you sound so depressed?”

Deanna shook her head slowly and gazed down into her tea. When she finally looked up at her friend, she found that Beverly had taken the second chair on the visitor’s side of her desk, and waited with a sympathetic expression.

“After all that, and you’re still afraid? You’re in love with him, too, so of course you are.”

Deanna stared at Beverly in stunned dismay. It brought Beverly forward to give her a hug, leaning over the distance between their chairs, and then she sat back to look at her again with a hand on her shoulder.

“I’m just afraid it’s all too much. Alexander is just starting to process trauma, and it’s not going to be anything I can predict -- it’s a complicated messy process, Beverly. He had a meltdown wanting to go skydiving again. My mother failed to give him enough exercise so the time I spent with him when I rejoined them, he was on an adrenaline high -- you saw the crash in the shuttle. Jean-Luc doesn’t need that kind of stress when he’s off duty, and I just don’t see it getting easier any time soon.”

“So it’s more than just the usual nerves of being in love with someone. But he’s not exactly twenty and stupid, either. You don’t think he understands what he’s getting into? I think he knows you pretty well.”

Deanna stared at the cooling cup of chamomile on the edge of the desk. “I think he understands intellectually, same as he usually does. I think the stress of a difficult child combined with the stress of trying to do something he never intended to do, with someone he tried to have no feelings for and used to have therapy with and might still find too intimidating or aware or emotional or accident-prone for his taste -- “

“Oh, stop, you’re making me anxious,” Beverly exclaimed. 

“He keeps trying to process it as if I’m still his counselor. Or as if we’re in a briefing.”

“So I just need to put anti-anxiety medication through the ventilation system, is what you’re saying.”

“It’s not funny!” Deanna crossed her arms and scowled at the tea.

Beverly’s hand warmed her shoulders with friction, traveling back and forth as she tried to comfort her. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I know better. He is the captain, after all, and you’re up against your own training as well, aren’t you? It’s just automatic for you to identify all the things that go wrong, all the -- sorry. Not helping.”

“I have to take care of Alexander. I really like my job, Beverly, and I’m going to take the bridge test, and I want to keep things as they are, stay on the _Enterprise_. I enjoy working with Captain Picard. I just have to wonder how it all changes, if he and I are together.”

Beverly chuckled and reached for her tea cup. “I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”

“What else has he told you?”

The doctor gave her a sharp look. “I think you already know he doesn’t tell me everything. He’s not going to be chatty and casual about things. He’ll tell stories, sometimes, but he doesn’t talk about love, or sex. Not his way, you know.”

“I know,” Deanna said with a sigh. “I know.”

“But when I express concern about you his face changes. I might be able to guess when you started the evolution -- right about the time he switched counselors?”

“Right before Will left. I told Jean-Luc about -- “ But she hadn’t told Beverly everything, and she couldn’t remember what she’d said. “He was waiting for me at my office, when I came out of the lift. Will was trying to get me to talk to him, again. He was almost shouting at me. Jean-Luc didn’t like that -- I should say the captain didn’t, he was upset with Will for that on that basis.”

“I would have scolded Will, too.” Beverly sipped, and gave her a canny smile. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do. I have good anti-anxiety meds, you know. Sedatives.”

“How was the medical conference?”

Beverly chuckled louder. “It was absolutely fantastic. I downloaded a few summaries from a medical symposium on Risa to show the captain, and spent the rest of my time sleeping next to the pool at the resort.”

“It sounds like just what the doctor ordered,” Deanna said with a grin.

“I’ll probably confess to cheating. But I found out Dr. Mizan was going to be at the conference on Lavonia, and after your experience with him at the conference last year, I wasn’t about to take a chance.”

“I suspect Jean-Luc will understand completely.” Deanna put her cup on the desk. “I’d better go, I probably have someone waiting for me. Thanks, Beverly.”

“When do you see him again?”

“We’re having dinner tonight, if nothing comes up. We never know, around here.”

“Well, if I didn’t have enough to deduce he was smitten already, that would close the deal. Good luck. Don’t break a leg.”

Deanna glared at her good-naturedly and left her office, and sickbay, heading back to deck two. Lieutenant Calloway had an appointment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Mizan was mentioned in Timescape, as being an expert on interspecies mating, who propositioned Deanna at a conference.


	10. The Dinner

“Are you really happy?” Alexander asked, for the hundredth time.

Instead of answering ‘yes’ for the hundredth time, Deanna slowed their progress down the corridor toward the Garcia family’s quarters, and put a hand on her son’s shoulder. “I am very happy. I am not going to talk about it constantly, though, because I have a lot of other things going on, and we have a lot more in our lives that we have to focus on, don’t we? I think you’ll find plenty of things to tell Bo when you are with him, that have nothing to do with the captain, right?”

“I know I’m not supposed to talk about you and the captain with anyone. But that means I only get to talk to you, and I really wanted you to know I’m okay with it,” he exclaimed.

“All right. Thank you, for being sure. And just so you know, it doesn’t change the rest of our lives much. I still have work to do, and you still have school. So we’ll have a lot of other things to talk about, too.”

“Like when we’re going on vacation again -- it was so much fun,” he cried, skipping a few steps. 

“I’ll ask about the schedule for the next few months. But you know it can take a while, to have some time and an opportunity for leave, when you’re on a starship.”

Melinda Garcia met them at the door and greeted Alexander warmly. Deanna lingered to let her know that Alexander needed to observe a strict bedtime, and left after seeing Alexander was involved in excitedly telling Bo all about the shuttle to Lavonia, and telling jokes to the captain and the lieutenants. 

In her quarters, she hurried to change out of the uniform, and chose a modest dress in a vivid teal. There was no time to re-do her hair. She arrived at the captain’s door as he approached from the other direction, and gave him a warm smile, trying to settle her nervous jitters by taking a deep breath.

“It’s good to see you,” he said, his eyes wandering down and then back up to hers. 

“You have alcohol,” she observed. He had a wine bottle in one hand. 

“No wicked motives, I assure you. I just thought it would be nice to have a glass with dinner.”

She followed him in, and watched him put the wine on the table. Seeing that it was already set with everything but the plates added a few butterflies to her stomach. He was already making things difficult, and then he turned and put his hands on her shoulders, gently, looking in her eyes.

“It’s good to see you, too.” She leaned in, to kiss him -- she intended it to be brief and he lingered, more affectionate than passionate. 

“Beverly came by this afternoon, apologized for yelling at me yesterday in the shuttle,” he said. He moved to the replicator. “Do you have a preference?”

“Surprise me,” she said, attempting to appear unsurprised by his manner -- she’d been aware of him all day, here and there in between conversations with others. She knew he must have been thinking hard about everything. He’d gone through anxiety and plenty of other emotions, some no doubt related to her and their relationship. At the moment, however, he had only anticipation.

“It’s been a difficult day. I suppose the adjustment from leave is only more difficult because of -- well, everything that we talked about. Definitely not the usual end result to a few days off, for me.” Jean-Luc returned and placed loaded plates on the table, and came around to pull out the chair for her.

“Alexander had a lot to say about how happy he is and how much he’s looking forward to the next trip. When I picked him up from school the teacher looked almost as tired as I’ve been, so I suspect he said it all day whether or not I was there to hear it.” She studied the plate and picked up the fork. “As for me, I’m glad to be here, finally. It’s been anything but routine this afternoon.”

Jean-Luc was applying a corkscrew to the wine bottle. “Did something happen?”

“I talked to Data about taking the bridge test.”

He had been about to pull, and turned to look at her instead. “You did,” he exclaimed.

“I’m taking the first part of it tomorrow. He thought I would be ready for it, after a little review.” Deanna tried the vegetables first. “This is good.”

“You’ll do fine,” he said, applying himself once more and pulling the cork with a resounding pop. He poured a half glass for each of them. “This is a pinot noir. It may be a little tart.”

“I enjoy things other than chocolate, once in a while,” she said as he passed the glass across to her. 

“Really? Like what?”

She took a taste, just a touch to the tongue, and nodded. “It’s good. Are we toasting anything?”

Jean-Luc held out the glass. When she tapped it with hers, with a ringing sound, he said, “To us.”

“To us,” she echoed. “And surviving another leave without involving Starfleet security.”

“Oh, ye of little faith,” he said with a smirk, sipping his wine. As he set his glass down and raised his fork, he inclined his head slightly. “Did you enjoy leave?”

Deanna took a bite of the beef off the tines and chewed a few times before answering. “Of course. I can’t say that some of it wasn’t stressful, though. I was a bit anxious every once in a while.”

He smiled, and she sensed he would have laughed if he hadn’t been chewing. Once he swallowed he said, “Again, I revise my understanding of your word usage -- you are a master of understatement.”

“Mistress, perhaps.” She gave him a wry smile. “Did you enjoy it?”

“I found it illuminating, restful, stressful and exciting, by turns. I’m sure you could tell which moments suit each of those.”

“Not stimulating? Arousing?”

He lowered the wine glass from his lips and waved it gently at her. “Don’t start that until after dinner.”

“Yes, dear,” she mocked gently. The last bit of broccoli consumed, she worked on the rest of the meat with her knife. “You’ve been thinking a lot today, but it seems you’ve resolved a lot of the anxiety involved.”

“Perhaps resolved is the wrong word. Some things are resolved, others were set aside. You told me at one point that I compartmentalize well. I thought it might be a nice change, from all the time I’ve spent with you anxious, if you might be able to spend time with me not being stressed.”

She knew she was grinning like a fiend, trying not to cry a little about it. A slow sip of wine and a deep slow breath. “That may be the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

Jean-Luc looked up from his plate in surprise. He frowned, just a little.

“Thank you.”

“I thought it was a rather obvious thing to do.”

Shaking her head, she tucked the last bite of her small steak in her mouth. “Perhaps it’s obvious to you. I’ve never had anyone try.”

He didn’t try to offer her more wine, instead returning from recycling the dishes with a single bowl of ice cream. “If you come sit on the couch with me, I’ll share it with you.”

Deanna followed him, now wondering if her smile might be permanent. “I’m starting to worry a little.”

“Whatever for?”

She sat with him, and his left arm went across her shoulders, leaving the bowl of ice cream in his right -- she guessed he intended her to pick up the spoon. The ice cream was white with chunks of various things, some of which appeared to be chocolate. 

“You appear to know all my weaknesses,” she said, taking up a spoonful and tasting the confection. The first bite was a complete surprise. There were things in the galaxy that were densely chocolate, velvety chocolate, or sinfully chocolate -- he must have a knack for finding strange new phenomena, this was all three. “My god,” she mumbled around the mouthful, trying to not lose any of it.

“I suppose that must be approval?”

She went for another spoonful and held it up to him. He let her put it in his mouth, watching her as she did so, and she wondered if they might not finish it. But his intense expression dwindled, and the moment of desire passed, and she continued to eat with him until a third of it was gone. 

“It’s a bit more than I can manage, after a meal, but thank you.”

“What weaknesses do you have, other than this?” He turned to put the bowl aside, on the end table, and settled into a slouch, nudging her closer in against him.

“Well, good food and good wine. And your smile.”

He couldn’t quite scowl at her for it. “Just the smile?”

She shook her head slowly, and gave him an obvious once-over.

“Is there anything else that you require?” 

“That depends upon what we’re planning to do next.”

“What do you want to do?” he mumbled.

She’d lounged against him, her eyes almost closed, and when she raised her head slightly to look at him the words fled. It struck her again that this was Jean-Luc, looking at her this way, actually restraining himself, not hiding the attraction and desire.

It would be the easiest thing to kiss him. But she knew the emotions were mutual, and she wouldn’t leave tonight if she did. And one of the things that had come clear to her, after waking up that morning and thinking about the time they’d spent together, was how far they had gone without really paying attention to it.

She almost spoke, but pressed her lips together and looked away -- at his quarters, larger and more monotonously decorated, in varying shades of gray and black. She thought about how much she trusted him, and how differently he had treated her. 

His concern, due to her hesitation and probably her expression, started to grow. Deanna tried to ease the lump in her throat, to speak, but she didn’t know what to say. A different kind of yearning filled her; she turned her head to look him in the eye, and before he could react to whatever he saw there, she shifted and laid her head on his shoulder, reaching across his chest and pulling her feet up -- curling up against him. 

He didn’t question it, and settled in to hold her. She closed her eyes and rested, letting his calm affection be hers. 

She had no idea how much time passed, but eventually he spoke. “Deanna?”

“I should go,” she muttered, raising her head. “Thank you, so much, everything was wonderful.”

He looked and felt as peaceful as she had been, as he started to sit up and turn toward her. A little regret crept in. She sat, both hands on his thigh, and waited while gazing into his eyes. 

“Could I persuade you to return next week?” he asked at last. 

“I would enjoy your company. No persuasion needed.” She remembered then what he’d said, that turn of phrase he had used when they were talking at the resort. “When you said you knew what you needed, what did you mean?”

Jean-Luc leaned in and kissed her -- he had a knack for going from lazy and drowsy to intense and almost demanding, and when he pulled away after a minute, she was breathless. “I’ll walk you home.”

“It’s a dangerous neighborhood. I was definitely in need of an escort.”

He gave her a look that made her regret leaving -- sly, a little predatory, almost feral. “You should look in the mirror when you get home.”

She accepted his hand as they stood up, and he even went so far as to pull her against him as they walked out. It took no time at all to walk the empty corridor to her door, a mere six doors away. 

“Should I copy the look, next time?”

It brought him around, as he started back down to his quarters from her door. “Only if you aren’t hungry at all.” He marched off with a determined stride.

Deanna went in, passed through the bedroom to the bathroom, and flinched at her reflection. She looked rumpled and her hair had a tousled, messy look to it -- he must have been playing with it while they’d been relaxing together on the couch. She smiled at it, and started to laugh. 

“Oh, dear,” she whispered. “I suppose we’ll see how I deal with temptation.”


	11. The Eye of the Beholder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The original episode featured the first officer playing counselor and the security officer playing engineer (Worf somehow stopped the plasma flow and Will went up there to talk to the lieutenant trying to jump to his death). And then they let Dan jump in there anyway. And then the episode just drew itself out with lots of "it doesn't make any sense what I'm sensing" and then the viewer was left to sit and wait for that critical piece of information that she was experiencing someone else's memories because they were stuck in the wall after they committed suicide.
> 
> What?
> 
> That's what I said. It's still kinda what I'm saying, but in the Star Trek universe, it's also canon that Vulcans can get their katra stuck in Dr. McCoy's head and make him nuts, and then they can magic the katra back into a recreated body of Spock from the accidental Genesis planet, with a lot of chanting by old Vulcans in weird hats. 
> 
> We'll just pretend it makes sense, like always, k? It's not really what the story is about anyway. It was an episode where the thing they thought was the main plot could have taken ten minutes, and the real story could have been told.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some dialogue in the beginning paragraphs is word for word from the episode.

“Troi to bridge.” Deanna climbed the ladder as fast as she could, trying to keep up with McCormick. 

“Bridge,” came the captain’s clipped response. 

“We’re almost there. Mike’s opening the panel now.” The security chief had stopped and was working at the latches. 

“Excellent. Mr. Natchez, release the exterior hull plate. We may have to jettison the core.”

“Aye, sir,” came the distant response from their new ops manager. 

McCormick shoved, the panel clanged aside, and she closed her eyes to briefly enjoy the rush of cool air into the confining tube. She climbed up and accepted Mike’s arm to help her find her feet as she quickly emerged in the control room in the nacelle tube. Red alert warning lights blinked all around, and a lieutenant-commander stood working frantically at a console in the middle of the space.

The lieutenant-commander glanced at her, and waves of fear were buffeting Deanna. “He locked out the controls. Before we knew what was happening, he stepped up onto the walkway. I’m trying to shut down the plasma flow.”

Deanna started for the ladder, to climb to the narrow walkway in front of the huge opening into the aft nacelle -- Dan Kwan was standing in the flickering blue light from the plasma streaming through the interior of the nacelle.

From behind her, Lieutenant-Commander Nara called out, “I'm afraid if we try to get any closer, he will jump through the forcefield.”

Deanna ignored a little vertigo, and took a couple of slow steps toward Dan, focusing on him, trying to ignore Nara’s fear. “Dan, look at me,” she said soothingly. A heaviness grew in the pit of her stomach. She had sensed the overwhelming despair and heartbreak from decks away -- this close, it was threatening to crush her. Already the tears had started to run down her face. She ignored them and did the best she could to maintain equilibrium, focus, set it all aside.

Dan swayed slightly but didn’t look at her. “I didn't want to do it. But I saw them. And they laughed at me. They laughed.”

Deanna almost sobbed -- the words came on waves of tormented anguish. “Dan, come with me. Come to my -- “

Suddenly she wasn’t standing on the walkway in the nacelle tube any more. There was a door -- she walked toward it, vaguely recognizing that they were standard issue quarters, but not the _Enterprise_ , they were an older style. She heard a giggle. As she came around into the open door, she saw a couple, embracing, moving against each other, clearly enjoying each other and caught up in each other -- the woman turned and started to laugh, a little surprised and perhaps even embarrassed. Then her laughter changed -- open delight and mockery. And the man started to laugh in triumph. 

“No,” Deanna gasped. “No! Stop it, stop laughing, stop!”

The pain intensified. Deanna fought to take a breath -- she had to focus! Where was Dan? What was this?

But the surroundings changed, without warning or obvious transition. Now she was standing in her quarters looking into the bedroom, and Jean-Luc stood holding Beverly, and they were laughing at her. 

Part of her rebelled at the sight -- she knew that would never happen -- but that little voice was quickly buried in pain -- she wailed, and turned to run somewhere, but the laughing continued and the despair set in. Somehow her hand found a phaser on the table littered with items -- somehow she turned -- she wasn’t controlling it. This, whatever it was, controlled her, and she saw the phaser in her hand, saw her hand come up -- she fired through the door and the beam struck Jean-Luc.

He vanished in a flare of light. She dropped the phaser in horror. 

There was a shift -- she hardly noticed it now, in the knee-shaking realization that she had killed him, and her stomach flipped and dove, her heart started to hammer in her chest. She was on the walkway where Dan Kwan had been standing. She turned to look out -- the flickering plasma stream cast an eerie glow all around her. 

She heard a voice, not hers, but her mouth was moving. “I know what I have to do.” Dread and certainty filled her.

Her foot started to move. She wanted to cry, scream, stop but she felt herself lunging -- 

Arms caught her. She gasped and grabbed -- his arms. The captain had to reciprocate, steadying her and keeping her from knocking him aside, and she stared at his shocked face with a flood of mixed emotions of her own.

“You’re alive,” she cried.

Confusion drew his mouth into a frown. “Yes,” he said, half-questioning.

She became aware that the plasma stream had been turned off, there were movements below -- a medical team was taking Dan Kwan out of the room, holding him up between them, Beverly tapping her badge and requesting transport. The four officers vanished in a transporter beam. Nara was already gone, as was McCormick. 

“What -- “ She staggered backward. He let her go, but kept his hands up, at the ready, as if calming a wild horse. 

“Come with me,” he said patiently. “Counselor, let’s go to your office.”

“But -- “ She looked again, at the dark interior of the nacelle, at the control room, at the gridwork of the walkway under her feet. Her eyes were drawn to the bulkhead, beyond him. Outside, in the darkened space of the nacelle, now that she was starting to calm down, she sensed -- not a presence. A resonance, perhaps?

“There’s something -- that panel,” she said, pointing. “Something there.”

“I’ll have Mr. LaForge look into it. Deanna, come down from here, with me.” 

She took a step, but her knees still felt weak. The captain stood stiffly, waiting, and Deanna heard a distant thump -- someone in the crawlspace on the way down. 

“There will be new officers here in a moment, to carry on as we restart the engines. Please come with me.” That had a different tone than before. It reached her, finally.

“You’re not -- “ She tried not to remember his face, as he pointed and laughed, or his body vanishing in a flare of phaser fire. Inhaling sharply, she tried to push past the terror and anguish again, to be on duty instead of collapsing in tears. 

“Counselor,” he said, formally, reminding her.

“Yes, sir.” 

He went down the ladder from the walkway first, and as she reached the bottom, he put a hand on her back -- her foot touched the floor and she found she had stepped into his arms. He held her but a few seconds, just enough to ground her, and she pulled away from him and watched him contact the transporter room.

\---------------------

She accepted the coffee from him and tried to still her hands, keep the minute shaking at bay. Outside the briefing room, the stars were streaking by as they resumed high warp toward Barson Two. Things were back to normal, almost. Just not Deanna Troi. 

She knew what would happen, as she’d been through it before. There would be the jittery nerves, perhaps nightmares. Possibly even a flashback. It was an occupational hazard. Her stomach fluttered and jumped, still. 

The captain sat at the head of the table again and folded his hands in front of him, forearms resting on the table. “Dr. Crusher, Mr. LaForge and Mr. Data will be here shortly. How are you?”

“Traumatized,” she answered honestly. Her eyes slid left, toward the floor. 

“You were surprised I was alive.”

“I’m going to leave out some details, when the others are here. I’m leaving them out of my official report as they aren’t relevant. There was a series of events -- I think Dan was caught in some sort of echo. He’s half Napean, half human. Napeans are empaths. He was caught, I think, in what I sensed from the panel. I think he must have gone through the same sequence of memories -- finding his lover in the arms of another man, shooting them, leaping into the plasma stream to die himself.”

It made an impression -- it was the last thing he’d expected to hear. “Deanna?”

“I saw it once, as it must have been. I saw it again, my mind must have substituted you -- I shot you, in the distorted memory. I was overwhelmed with what must have been the emotions of the real shooter.”

Jean-Luc’s emotions weren’t clear to her, as her own had risen again to a high level of distress. She was sure from a quick glance at his expression that he was worried. “We can talk about that after the meeting.”

Dr. Crusher arrived, came to sit next to Deanna, but did not express or show any of the concern she felt -- she sat straight up and addressed the captain. “Mr. Kwan is fine -- a concussion and a broken arm, from falling off the walkway when McCormick stunned him. He’ll be kept for observation until we figure out why he was up there.”

“He was about to commit suicide,” Deanna put in, impressed with herself that she sounded calmer. 

“You were about to,” the captain said.

“What?” Beverly exclaimed.

Geordi arrived, and went to the other side of the table. Data was right behind him almost in lockstep. “I completed a scan of the panel you indicated, Captain. There was cellular residue present in the panel that I can only conclude must be human -- it appears that someone leaped into the plasma stream.”

“I’d think we would know, wouldn’t we?” the captain asked.

“It was before the ship was launched,” Deanna said. She had been picturing the room as she remembered it from the hallucination. “In the memory there was a toolbox, sitting on the walkway. Labeled UPS -- Utopia Planitia was where the _Enterprise_ was built. Computer, are there records of when the _Enterprise_ was in drydock during construction, that would include disposition of the personnel working in the aft nacelle?”

“Affirmative.”

“Have there been any deaths aboard, before the ship was launched?”

“There were three deaths in the aft nacelle, due to an accidental plasma discharge.” 

She requested the records and stared at the pictures on the monitor. “Those were the people in the memory. Pierce -- he killed them. He must have thrown them into the plasma stream to hide the evidence and jumped in himself. He was… deranged.”

“I’ve never heard of any instance of such a thing -- why would you sense anything from the trace remains of someone killed in a plasma stream?” Beverly exclaimed.

Deanna touched the console, and brought up Pierce’s record. “He had a Betazoid grandparent. There was a memory lodged there, in the panel, where the plasma flow was diverted and dispersed when he leaped into it. He was engaged to her, and she was having an affair with his friend. The anguish and rage overwhelmed him. It almost overwhelmed me. It was as though something was moving my hand, with the phaser, and I felt myself shooting and couldn’t stop myself. The memory was distorted and jumbled -- “ 

“Slow down, Deanna,” Beverly said, putting a hand on her shoulder. It was enough to help her realize how agitated she was becoming. 

“I have a lot of residual anxiety, but I’m all right,” Deanna said. “It’s as though all the information is flooding in, now that I’m calm enough to assimilate it all. Dan was new to the assignment. I think he went up on the walkway just today, for the first time, and got caught. I helped with his evaluation, just a couple of weeks ago, and I did his girlfriend’s just yesterday -- they’re newly engaged and very happy. I thought it was strange, that he would be attempting suicide that way.”

“It’s possible for someone -- what remains of them -- to be stored In a vessel after death. Vulcans do it,” the captain said. “I suppose that this is proof of the possibility of an accidental occurrence of the same. Mr. LaForge, will it be possible to replace the affected panel, to remove the possibility of this sort of thing happening again?”

“Absolutely, but it will take an extended period at a starbase -- we’ll have to shut down, obviously, and tear apart that section of the nacelle,” Geordi said. 

“I suppose we could send the panel to Starfleet along with the report -- it could be considered remains, and it’s definitely evidence of a murder-suicide,” Beverly put in. 

“Then after Barson Two, we’ll be on our way to a starbase to get it done. Dismissed. Counselor, a moment of your time?”

She lingered, watching her friends leave. After the door closed behind Geordi, she looked at the captain directly, finally, and found him watching her with a sober expression. “I know I should take some time off.”

“You will. And call your counselor?”

“Yes,” she replied with a sigh. “Probably spend some time on the holodeck. It felt so… real. There were other memories, of his relationship with her, and it was like they happened to me. He was almost obsessed with her -- it was nothing like me, but I felt it all as though I went through it. She was fickle and caught up in any man who showed any interest, and he couldn’t break away. When it changed -- “

He smiled faintly. “I know what you were about to say.”

Deanna went to the replicator behind him and asked for a handkerchief. “What am I about to say?” Her voice was choked with tears. She returned to her chair and dabbed at her eyes.

“You were about to say that regardless of what we know to be true, strong feelings can conflict and cause more distress than they warrant. You know I would never laugh at you or have any interest in anyone else.”

To hear him say it in this setting, while he was firmly ensconced in being the captain, had a significant impact. “It’s hard to believe it all happened in -- how long was I caught in it?”

“Longer than was comfortable for anyone. When McCormick told me that you were unresponsive, I contacted sickbay and came myself -- Commander Nara was finally able to cut the plasma stream with Geordi’s assistance from engineering, and turned off the force field as well. Kwan started to move, and McCormick stunned him rather than let him fall the other way, to his death. I estimate it was nearly eight minutes, by the time I beamed in with Beverly and her staff.”

With the engines off, the risk of transporter use was eliminated. Deanna nodded. “So it was another few minutes until you were able to shake me out of it. I almost can’t believe that.”

“It’s reminiscent of my experience with the Ressikan probe. However, it’s obviously wholly traumatic to you,” he said quietly. He considered her silently for a few long moments, and still, she had difficulty deciphering what he was feeling -- her heart rate was still elevated, and she had started to feel the exhaustion that was coming. “Why don’t you stay with me tonight?”

Her eyes flew open wide; she closed her mouth again after a few seconds. “Oh.”

“I don’t think you should be alone. And, I suspect that being traumatized himself,it would be problematic for Alexander to witness the fallout of it. I can ask Beverly to stay with him.”

“Oh,” she said again, softly. She winced. “I suppose it’s a good thing I got the briefing over with. I’m starting to fade.”

“Go on, then. Take a bath, take a nap. I’ll be along when I can.”

She obeyed him without thinking much about it, but realized as she approached his quarters that she was walking in a haze. She didn’t remember much about the walk to his door. The placard on the wall with his name on it woke her up a little. She jumped a little when the door opened at her approach -- when had he given her unrestricted access?

Deanna had been in his bedroom before, but this was different -- she was not being the counselor today, sitting with her traumatized captain. She laughed out loud at the awkward feeling, the strangeness of being stuck in this odd role -- the rational and clinical voice in her head informed her that he loved her and that was the context in which he was taking care of her, but part of her insisted that it was strange, to have a client suddenly take charge of helping her with trauma.

His bathtub was big enough for four. Feeling dislocated and foreign, she pulled out hair pins and took off clothing, fumbling with the clasp on the bra. Frustrated, she gave up and tore it off over her head, throwing it at the wall. Then she heard a footfall behind her -- before it registered that it was probably only the owner of the room she was in, as the computer wouldn’t have allowed anyone else in, she screamed and was flailing and falling, grabbing at a towel rack. 

Miraculously, he caught her. She found herself being set upon her feet. “All right?”

Shaking her head in humiliation, she tried to move away, but for once he kept her in his arms around her tightly and wouldn’t let her go. Her body started to shake, and despite her better efforts she started to cry. And then she was sobbing, while standing naked in his bathroom and being held by the captain.

Only the captain hadn’t ever stroked her hair this way, or soothed her like a small child. She’d never heard him do that to a small child -- this was wholly different from the discomfort and awkwardness she’d come to expect from him, in such situations.

He didn’t even ask, after she’d calmed. “In the bath. I’d offer to wash your back if I didn’t suspect you’d rather soak for a bit with some privacy?”

“I’m all right,” she hiccuped, proving otherwise. 

“Of course you are,” he shot back with exactly the right note of sarcasm. He laughed with her, at least.

“I thought you wouldn’t be here until after alpha shift.”

“Now, why would you think that? Get in the damn tub. I’ll be out at the desk while you’re in here relaxing.”

She was dubious as to the actual benefits of taking a bath instead of just having a nap, but she supposed that she did feel better afterward. He was calm, perhaps concerned, she sensed him from two rooms away -- she hadn’t tried to but she found her attention went to him anyway. She took her time drying and brushing out her hair, and then discovered her discarded clothing was gone. He'd probably recycled them. Wrapping herself in a towel, she went to the bedroom. The door to the living room was standing open, and no one else was out there -- well, almost no one. As she reached it she heard Data.

“I have a recital tomorrow evening. I hope that we will have concluded our assignment, before it starts.”

She peeked around the edge of the door and ducked back to lean against the wall, out of sight. Data was standing with his back turned but Jean-Luc had noticed her. 

“As do I, Mr. Data. Thank you for bringing the report -- I’ll see you in the morning.”

She heard the android exit the room, and then Jean-Luc came to the door, stopping just inside with a hand on the door frame, raising his eyebrows at her as she clutched the towel at her chest.

“I considered crawling a Jeffries tube to my quarters for clothes, but didn’t want to miscount the access panels and end up surprising Mr. Keliminon -- he tends to shed copious amounts of fur when startled.”

“I wouldn’t complain if you stay as you are,” he exclaimed. “But it might startle guests, so I suppose we should replicate you something to wear. Unless you’d like to try something of mine?”

His interest in that hinted that he liked the idea, but she went to ask for a comfortable pullover dress style that she favored, and put it on, then picked up the towel from the floor to recycle it. She turned to find that he was watching her with concern, again. 

“Want anything to eat?”

“I should. But I’m not hungry.”

He approached slowly, arms crossed. “Sandwich?”

By the time they were seated on the couch and she had taken a bite, she started to feel fuzzy again -- by the time she finished the half sandwich she’d replicated, she drooped and found herself leaning against him again, the exhaustion weighing her down. 

She woke briefly upon being swept up and carried, and laid in sheets then tucked into the covers. She woke again to being bleary-eyed and confused, at the orientation of the viewports overhead -- the ones in her quarters were angled slightly differently than the bed -- and startled by his presence. He was asleep on his stomach and breathing slowly, not snoring.

The third time she woke, a scream was dying on her lips, and she was upright with tears on her face. She flinched at a hand on her arm -- and it came rushing back to her that she wasn’t watching him laugh, wasn’t firing the phaser, wasn’t watching him vanish before her eyes, here he was reaching for her. 

“I hate this,” she cried, clinging to him. 

“So do I.” He held her tightly. As she calmed down, he settled on his back and then pulled her down to lie against him, rearranging things a little -- pushing her hair back from her face, tugging up the blanket over them, and spooning with her.

His solid presence against her back was enough, apparently, as she slept through the night. She woke early, and found him already up, coming out of the bathroom putting on his pips. He came to sit on the side of the bed when he saw she was awake.

“Feeling better?”

“Much. I should go see Alexander, he’s -- “

“He’s fine. You should sleep in, if you like, and call your counselor later. Beverly brought him for breakfast this morning. I told him you would be home later today.”

That gave her pause. How late was it? “Thank you, for everything. You didn’t have to do all this. I would never expect it.”

“It’s going to take a while to re-orient yourself. Take your time.” He bent down and kissed her on the forehead, and left.

Deanna lay there for a while thinking about the past twenty-four hours, and tried to sort it through -- how had she gotten here? There were so many things fighting for her attention but her thoughts lingered on the utter domesticity of Jean-Luc bringing her home, feeding her, putting her to bed and then giving her a kiss before he went off to work. 

But, of course, extenuating circumstances prevailed. He knew better than most aboard what trauma symptoms were like. And he had provided just enough intervention for her to get through the first day and manage a good night’s sleep, and then some. 

“Computer, open a channel to Dr. Leticia Carlson, at Starfleet Medical,” she said into the air, rolling on her side and curling up under the blankets. “Audio only.”

It took a moment, and to her surprise Lettie answered. “Deanna -- are you all right? You missed your time yesterday.”

“I had a red alert consume all my time, in a few different ways. Is this a bad time?”

“I had a cancellation, so we’re fine. Do I hear some distress, or is it a trick of subspace?”

Deanna closed her eyes and smiled at it. “Oh, there’s plenty of distress to talk about. Remember what I told you about strange things that come out of nowhere?”

“Are you all right?” Lettie repeated.

“I had a nightmare last night, and I spent a good part of yesterday dissociating. At the moment I'm only slightly anxious, thinking about it. Fortunately Jean-Luc is no stranger to these sorts of things and understood.”

A short silence, that led Deanna to worry. “You know, when you talked last week about him, I had the feeling you weren’t mentioning details about him deliberately.”

“I know. And that’s true -- because I already know what you would say, because I would say the same, if I didn’t know all the details, and this is supposed to be about other things. At this point he’s the sanest part of my life. I’ve a lot more going on than that.”

“So why don’t you start at the most critical piece of it. We can get to the rest as it comes.”

Deanna knew Lettie wasn’t ready for it. She considered for a moment approaching it less directly. It was her session, though, and it wasn’t her responsibility to sugar-coat things for her therapist. “Yesterday morning, I experienced the emotions of a deranged man who killed his unfaithful lover and the man she was with. He then killed himself -- I experienced those emotions as well. I relived them while hallucinating that it was Jean-Luc, and one of our mutual friends. So in essence I could say that I shot and killed him, and I was about to attempt suicide.”

A long, long silence. “I’m sorry. I think I have to ask you to go to the beginning and explain it all again.”

“All right. There was a red alert, so I went to the bridge.”

“Deanna, I meant the beginning of the experience.”

“That was the beginning. I’m senior staff, when there’s a red alert I go to the bridge, and then the captain ordered me to the aft nacelle tube, where one of the crew was about to jump into the plasma stream -- that would have been catastrophic for the ship. He was suicidal, and it was clear to me that it was sudden -- Kwan was in my office just a few weeks ago for a performance review, and he was fine. And then it hit me, the overwhelming despair, and suddenly I was reliving the memories he was trapped in. I experienced powerful hallucinations that led to my almost jumping myself, almost committing suicide, and then suddenly it ended and I was standing on the walkway being shaken out of it -- they had kept Kwan from jumping, and were finally able to shut down the plasma flow and shake me out of it. And then I started to experience symptoms, and while I was able to sit in the briefing I was having difficulties. I’m off duty, at the moment. The captain isn’t letting me go back to work until it’s clear I’m fit for duty.”

“So I’m not clear on how it came about that you were hallucinating. I understand you are able to experience the emotions of others. That doesn’t make you hallucinate, does it?”

“Records indicate that three people died while the the ship was being built and the engines were being tested. That they were lost in an accidental fluctuation of the plasma flow. The murderer was mostly human, with Betazoid heritage, and when he leaped into the plasma embedded some of him in the bulkhead, along with a psionic imprint that was never picked up until Kwan was assigned to the nacelle. He’s Napean, also empathic, and the echo caught him and nearly killed him. Since it appeared he was suicidal, I was sent to intervene and got caught in it as well. It was an extremely disturbing series of memories. I suspect the man was quite unwell.”

Another silence while Lettie gathered her thoughts. Possibly her calm, or her wits -- at times Deanna had done the same. “You said that Jean-Luc understands this sort of thing,” she began, slowly, clearly stunned.

“He’s had post traumatic stress disorder twice. I helped him both times. It’s been about a year since he’s needed any help, and at the moment he’s working with one of the other counselors, about -- well, frankly, he’s probably talking to her about me, at the moment. He started it this time when he had to order a young ensign to her death, on an important mission a few months ago.”

Lettie proved she had an excellent memory for detail, or good note-taking skills. “So your captain is seeing your assistant counselor, discussing issues related to his personal relationship with her supervisor.”

Deanna opened her eyes and sighed audibly. “It’s weird. But we’re used to that. I haven’t even begun to tell you about my other very good friend -- Dr. Crusher is my supervisor. Jean-Luc has breakfast with her at least once a week, as they’re old friends.”

This time, the silence was so long Deanna wondered if Lettie hadn’t closed the channel and gone to find a list of potential psychologists to refer her to. 

“Lettie?”

“Tell me something that can help me stop coming to bad conclusions.”

“I suppose we either need to have a longer session, or perhaps have you come visit and talk to me in person. I can introduce you to Jean-Luc, if you like. I doubt you’ll be satisfied with my assurance that the ship is being run in its usual efficient and professional manner, and that there’s nothing untoward going on with the senior staff.”

“We can continue the session -- I’m sorry, but you’ve startled me out of the realm of therapy into the side of this where I have a responsibility to determine the fitness of the officer I’m talking to on behalf of Starfleet -- “

“I understand, Lettie. I do it often enough myself. And I’m sorry that I’ve done it to you, because I know I need to work through things -- he’s not going to let me just go back to my office. I’m also not just a counselor here -- he relies on me all the time, on the bridge. We often have diplomatic missions as well that I assist with, and I’m much better at languages, so I’ve coached him at times with instances where the universal translator wasn’t enough.”

She heard Lettie make a noise but couldn’t tell whether it was surprise, or disbelief, or something else. “You’re saying he would be able to tell whether you should go back?”

“We’ve been good friends, in addition to everything else, for a long time. I’m his officer. I helped him manage his own symptoms. He knows what to look for, and he knows me well enough to see it in me.”

“Maybe,” Lettie began, and lapsed into thought. “Maybe we need to start with this. Maybe you need to tell me more about your relationship with him. I can tell that I don’t have enough information to understand it.”

Deanna almost insisted that they not start there, but knew exactly how that would be perceived. “I’m not sure I can tell you what you need to know. I think you might have to be here, to see me. Him as well.”

“I think you’re probably aware your captain has a reputation, at Starfleet Medical,” Lettie said with a note of warning.

Deanna smiled, hugging the pillow she’d had in her arms all this time -- the one he’d been using, she guessed. “He’s changed,” she said, her tone infused with warmth and pride in her former client.

“I’ll give it consideration. Now, let’s get back to your symptoms, if you would.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now, do I skip Genesis (everyone turns into animals as they de-evolve) or run it through the de-Worf-alizer? Losing the gigantic Klingon spider predator takes some of the tension out of it...


	12. The Trauma

Beverly brought Alexander home from school just as Deanna finished putting on shoes. She'd decided to put on a soft green wraparound and be as normal as she could be, for the evening. Her little boy needed that. Both he and Beverly grinned at her, and Alexander leaped at her to give her a hug. 

“He missed you,” Beverly said, as the hug went on and on.

“How are you, little tiger? How was school?”

“It was okay,” he said, finally peeling his arms away from her waist. “I have a little bit of homework. Dr. Crusher said you weren’t feeling well. Are you okay now?”

Deanna gestured at the couch, and he came to sit with her. “You can stay,” she said before Beverly could finish turning to go. “I’d like to talk to you after I talk to Alexander.”

“Okay.” Beverly sat on the end of the couch apart from them.

Deanna smiled at Alexander, deciding how to say it. “I was scared, by something that happened to me yesterday. Sometimes when something terrible happens, we get so scared, it has an impact on our bodies. It felt like my heart was beating so fast, and I couldn’t catch my breath. I was so afraid that my brain started to do funny things, trying to help -- I started to feel really numb. And then, I became so anxious that the slightest noise would make me jump as if I were being stalked by a tiger. Last night I had a really horrible dream, that made me feel like I was having it happen to me all over again.”

He considered that soberly. “Are you all right now?”

“I think so.”

Alexander looked at the floor, and fidgeted. “How did you stop it?”

“For one thing, I know what all those symptoms mean. I help people with them all the time. So I know they aren’t going to keep happening forever, and I know techniques to handle them when they happen. It doesn’t scare me, to have them, since I know they’re going away.”

“Can you -- “ Alexander fidgeted and shrugged. “Can you teach me, too?”

Deanna smiled knowingly at it. “Are you saying you have some of those problems?”

“A little.” He glanced at Beverly. 

“We can work on that. I’m actually a little tired, right now, so I’m going to rest for a bit before I start dinner. That’s another thing about this, all the anxiety and the fear makes me run in overdrive, stay on edge, and that just uses up all my energy faster so I’m tired. So it’s pretty important to get rest.” That was stretching it, but if she could make this a teaching moment, she’d milk it for all it was worth. 

“If you want I’ll get dinner ready. I can help,” he exclaimed.

“I think that’s wonderful, thank you. But after you get the work done.”

“Okay.” He eyed her, suddenly. “Where’s Captain Picard?”

“I think he’s on the bridge, why?” 

“Nothing. I’ll go do my math.” Alexander jumped off the couch and raced for his room.

Beverly moved closer and inclined her head toward the closing door. “He’s changed a lot -- I’m impressed. He was really good, with me.”

“I’m not surprised. He’s good, generally, until something triggers him and he goes off.”

“Are you really feeling that much better? Jean-Luc said you were hitting all the major symptoms yesterday.”

“I was, but it’s passing quickly. The biggest symptom of all is avoidance of any reminder of the incident -- I know better than to let that happen. I talked about it earlier with my counselor. I haven’t been able to talk to Jean-Luc in any detail but I intend to.”

“Judging from the scans I ran, that was one overwhelming empathic overload.”

Deanna blinked. She didn’t remember anything about the doctor visiting. “When did you do that?”

“I came by to check on you -- Jean-Luc had you asleep on the couch.” Beverly wasn’t laughing at it; she looked a little more serious than Deanna would have expected. “He was really worried about you.”

“Were you?”

Beverly sniffed. “Of course. But when I came back around nineteen hundred or so, your brain chemistry was already righting itself without my intervention. Letting you sleep was clearly the right thing for us to do. He was pretty adamant that I couldn’t wake you up to question you about symptoms.”

“I guess he learned the hard way, all the nagging I did to get him to sleep more than he was doing, when we were trying to help him post-Borg.”

“Or he knows you’d fret about Alexander, if you were awake for very long. Or something else.” She was looking at Deanna again with that questioning in her eyes.

“What, Beverly?”

“I’m just thinking how Worf would be proud of his son. Alexander was so concerned about you. I think Worf would be happy, if he knew how much progress you’re making with him already. I know there’s more to come, but it’s good that he’s bonded to you so well. And I find it absolutely amazing, that you’re so calm and rational with him.”

“I think you aren’t telling me everything,” Deanna said, scolding.

Beverly shrugged. “You’re right. I’m not telling you what happened when I brought him to see you. He absolutely refused to go to bed last night until he made sure you were all right. Jean-Luc let him come watch you sleep on the couch for a bit, so he knew you weren’t in sickbay. He was terrified that you were in sickbay.”

“Of course,” Deanna sighed. “Sickbay was where his father died. It was the last place he saw him. I’ll have to work on that with him, to help him -- he might need sickbay at some point, it wouldn’t help to have him panicked.”

“Deanna, Jean-Luc isn’t correcting him when Alexander talks about the two of you being -- well.”

“Worf was too quick to explain certain things to him. Alexander has a lot of ideas about how things should be, and it didn’t help that Worf told him he intended to marry me, then never did, never explained to him why. Now Alexander is encouraging me to believe he’s okay with my being with Jean-Luc.”

“Do you think he’s okay with it? I asked him why he thinks you’re together. He said that you were, because you said so, and apparently he saw you kissing Jean-Luc on Lavonia.” Beverly was adopting a superior air. 

“He did. I’m fairly certain you would find some of the things he didn’t see more amusing, still.”

Beverly had the grace to avert her eyes. She sighed, slumping wearily. “We’ve already established that Jean-Luc is unrepentantly, irrevocably in love with you.”

“Unrepentantly? What a strange thing to say.”

“He told Data and Geordi. Well, no -- he didn’t walk up and announce he’s in love with you, but he may as well have, he told them where you were, after Data commented that he’d attempted to visit and you weren’t in your quarters. I think Geordi might find his lower jaw somewhere on deck twenty, someday. Data got the ‘confused android’ look and actually asked why you were staying in Jean-Luc’s quarters. That won him the classic faintly-insulted, not-giving-a-rat’s-ass look from Jean-Luc.”

Deanna struggled with the idea of Jean-Luc doing that. She smiled nevertheless, covering the concern. “It’s almost like being there.”

“So what other things did you do on Lavonia?”

“Well, after the rummy tournament, we played checkers until dawn.”

Beverly started to giggle, then laugh. Deanna needed to laugh anyway. So when the door opened, Jean-Luc walked in and smiled, bemused but glad to see it. Beverly moved back toward the end of the couch and pointed, directing him to go sit with Deanna already.

“You look much better,” he commented after they subsided. He stepped around the coffee table and sat next to Deanna, not quite touching her.

“Beverly and I were discussing checkers,” Deanna said. It triggered a guffaw from Beverly. “And I feel much better, thank you. Although I suspect you spiked a drink sometime yesterday.”

“I really didn’t need to.” He eyed her dubiously. “I’ve never seen anyone sleep like that before.”

Deanna rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me I broke another kneecap while I was out?”

Both of them smiled at it. Jean-Luc shook his head. 

Alexander came out grinning, and hesitated upon seeing Jean-Luc, padd in hand. Deanna held out an expectant hand so he approached at a more sedate pace to give over his homework. “Are you staying for dinner?” She glanced at their guests. “Alexander’s replicating us food tonight.”

“Why not?” Beverly exclaimed, giving Jean-Luc a firm look. But he didn’t seem to need it -- he smiled at Alexander, at Deanna, his eyes shifting to her face and his emotions turning as he did so. 

Deanna said nothing, merely kept up the calm smile she’d used for years to keep life simple and relationships stable. But she knew she would be talking to Jean-Luc after Alexander went to bed, and she could ask about his high level of anxiety then.

“You did a good job on your math,” she said, setting aside the padd. “I think I would like a blue leaf salad.”

Alexander knew by now exactly which presets she liked -- the replicator had been set to copy Mr. Homn’s recipe for blue leaf salad, and Alexander even added oysters on the side and hot Tarkalian tea as she preferred. She noticed Jean-Luc taking note of the dishes, his eyes lingering a few seconds on each, before he turned to be startled by Alexander bringing him a bowl of ratatouille, which he accepted without comment, thanking him with the usual polite formality he still used with the little boy. 

Deanna wondered if that was his default now, or somehow an unconscious mimicry of Worf, who had been unfailingly formal and frequently uncomfortable with his son, or if it had to do with Beverly’s presence. Another thing to think about. She filed it away with other ideas about therapeutic approaches to Alexander’s emotional issues and started to eat dinner with her friends and her son.

Beverly was good at small talk with a child, drawing out all kinds of things in casual conversation about school friends and new toys he wanted for his birthday. Another thing to think about -- Alexander knew that other children aboard had birthday parties, and presents, and while it was not Klingon custom to celebrate Worf had relented and allowed a birthday party at school for Alexander. So she would need to think about whether to have a party in quarters or a party in school. 

“When’s your birthday, Captain?” Alexander asked, knocking Jean-Luc out of whatever deep thoughts he was thinking while subjects he considered trivial were being discussed.

“I don’t remember,” he said, but he wasn’t getting away with it.

“Next month,” Beverly said. “We’ll invite you to the party, Alexander.”

“I can’t wait! I love parties!” Alexander started to bounce in his chair, settling down when he caught the look Deanna gave him. “Is Grandma coming?”

“Grandma will be at a ceremony on Betazed -- it happens every year at the same time, and she has to attend. I’m sure she’ll make sure the captain gets his present from her.” Not that she ever gave him one, or that he would ever want one. 

Beverly diverted them with clearing away dishes, and Alexander, stuck in helping mode, did it with great energy. He wanted to show off his kata, which he did and gained general applause from his audience, and then he wanted to play a game, but Deanna could tell he was tired and ordered him off to get ready for bed. He accepted a kiss on the forehead and reluctantly said good-night, and dragged his feet off to his room.

“I should probably do the same, we’re arriving at Barsan at four hundred hours,” Beverly said. 

“Good night, Beverly,” Deanna said, and Jean-Luc smiled at their friend fondly. The doctor left sedately.

They sat for a moment in silence. 

“I may have caused a problem,” Deanna said at last.

Jean-Luc gave her a calm look -- he had settled into a composed collection of emotions she had come to recognize as his normal, a contented state of being that usually occurred in calmer moments between missions. Some of his earlier anxiety was returning, but he waited for her to continue.

“You’re probably talking about us in counseling,” she half-asked.

“Why would that be your fault, if I did? And I haven’t, actually.”

She smiled ruefully at it. “I’m Sarah’s supervisor, and you’re my -- our -- captain, and that would be… confusingly boundary challenging for anyone. Starfleet never thinks much about these things when they make decisions, I suspect.”

“Then I can solve the problem by finding a counselor outside our chain of command, if I had any inclination of talking about you. But I don’t see a need to do that. I do want to discuss something else with you.”

“I expected that you might. You’ve been ruminating about something off and on all evening.”

“I’m starting to run up against situations where it becomes difficult to avoid discussion of our relationship. I don’t mean the crew at large -- I’m concerned about the senior staff, and other officers who frequent the bridge.” He leaned back in the chair, arms crossed loosely across his ribs. “How do you handle it?”

“I tend to be guarded all the time anyway -- I can’t just say the first thing that comes to mind, when chatting with someone. If I started to do that any time I was speaking to someone I’d destroy every relationship on the ship. My usual practice is to say something in the abstract, or make a generalization. But you’re right, our friends are going to need to know. Data will need some help.” 

And now, the more she thought about it, the less likely this entire endeavor appeared to be a rational choice. Lettie’s hesitation was something she’d expected. Any mental health professional in Starfleet had probably seen something like this happen before, between senior officers, and had to sort through the fallout. They could hardly be unique -- close relationships happened, when you lived and worked next to each other for years. And yet, Deanna knew that it was unique. There really couldn't be anyone else like Jean-Luc.

“You’re going to make me ask, if you don’t talk about that,” he said. "Whatever it is that's making you upset."

Her smile was a response to the warmth in his tone. “I answered the questions my counselor asked by inviting her to come to see us, to ask questions directly. I felt it was the best way to avoid something official, to maintain an open and transparent stance with her. She’s had shipboard experience but she’s at Starfleet Medical. She’s questioning the way I would, if I heard about some captain and one of his senior staff becoming intimately involved.”

Now he was back in thoughtful mode, staring at the shining black surface of the table as if he saw something distasteful. “You have a good instinct in these matters. My thought was that the counselor isn’t typically in the line of fire as much as other officers.”

“Just because Data postponed the bridge test doesn’t mean I’m not taking it,” she said.

He nodded thoughtfully. Sitting up from his slump, he gazed at her again. “How are you feeling?”

“Still tired, but the anxiety has waned -- I’m not as jumpy as I was yesterday. I spent a lot of time thinking it through, and talked about it with Dr. Carlson. It’s a little easier this time, as it involved no actual harm to anyone. If you want me to tell you exactly what I saw, I can.”

“Do you need to?”

It wouldn’t have been the first thing her other friends would have asked. Jean-Luc had been through this enough, obviously. “I think so.”

He got up from the table and moved to the couch. She followed automatically and curled her legs beneath her, settling on the couch facing him. Jean-Luc shot a glance at the space between them and accepted it with a little concern.

“In the hallucination I had a little awareness left, that it wasn’t real. I knew it wasn’t true, because I know you and I know Beverly.”

The implication wasn’t lost on him, and now he was looking at her as if she’d pulled out a phaser.

“In the original memory it was Pierce’s friend and his lover. I think that had more to do with it than any suspicion on my part.” Deanna watched him settle down, sensed his return to a calmer internal landscape. "Another thing that's made it easier was that I don't think I would have felt the same -- his emotions were so violent. I would be heartbroken, but I wouldn't have been so... furious. It was horrible -- he went to rage and hatred in a heartbeat."

“Are you still feeling dislocated, out of sync?”

“No, but I think that’s your doing.”

“Nonsense. All I know how to do is show up.” He felt more than would have been obvious, from the casual tone and dismissive flick of his fingers. 

“I think you have a better instinct that you assume. I think you knew how to offset my trauma well enough, you didn’t even hesitate to put me in your bed. Some of my dislocation was due to that situation -- it’s hardly the same as sharing a room on leave. We hadn’t even gotten to a second date.”

“Date?” he echoed, frowning. 

Deanna shifted position, until she could lean on his shoulder and still look at his face. “I suppose we aren’t sixteen any more, are we?”

“I count myself fortunate, for that.”

“Weren’t you taking the entrance exam at sixteen?”

He was silent -- but only for a moment. There was a sort of twisting sensation in what she sensed. “I was a selfish, angry, determined and single-minded sixteen-year-old. I failed the entrance exam, because I was prone to indulging myself, not studying.”

She watched him not look at her. “Do you know what would change my mind, about wanting to be with you?”

That brought his eyes up. It piqued curiosity, which now pushed aside the trepidation and tension. 

“Why are you so worried about telling me about things that happened when you were a different person?” she asked, letting her fingers trail along his ear, down his neck. “You were a different person just a few years ago, and I remember that person well enough to know that he wasn’t some lascivious, lazy, angry little boy.”

“I made no mention of lascivious behavior,” he said defensively. 

“Isn’t that when such behavior typically -- “

“I’m not sure what purpose it serves to -- “ He stopped himself, thought about something for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he said, losing the defensive edge completely. “I shouldn’t snap at you.”

Deanna rested her cheek on his shoulder, left her hand open against the back of his neck, and closed her eyes. Reaching with her right arm, she put her other hand on his where it lay on his thigh.

He spent some time thinking about something, mixed feelings in turmoil. Then he started to move -- she had to move out of the way as his arm came up and descended around her, pulling her in against him.

“You want to know,” he said. 

“I shouldn’t pry.”

“That wasn’t -- “ His frustration was familiar enough; it was at himself, at the moment. “I know I am not entirely forthcoming, about the -- about my past.”

“You aren’t always secretive, you’ve shared bits and pieces before.”

“You weren’t prying. It’s natural to ask, to talk -- I know that well enough.”

Deanna sat up, pulled away, looked him in the eye. “You don’t like talking about your mistakes, your younger self, because you don’t like who you were. You don’t like people who show similar behavior to that which you regret.”

He gaped at her. “I thought -- “

“I’m not being your former counselor, Jean-Luc. I’m being myself -- I have a lot of regrets. I don’t like who I was, what I did, and I don’t like talking about that. I too pick and choose my shared secrets. But you can ask me if you wish. I had to make peace with those things, those mistakes and indiscretions. I learned a lot from them and it made me decide to be a better person.”

Jean-Luc smiled -- she wished she could see him be so happy more often. “I have to think you can’t have been so bad as all that.“

“I stole clothes. It was fun. I’d put them on and walk out of the store with my old clothes in the bag. It never ended up going to charges if I was caught, because Mother always paid for them.”

Now he was just hovering, emotionally, in a state of disbelief and shock.

“There was a period when I dove head-first into sensuality of all kinds -- the problem with being young, undisciplined and lacking in any actual skill or training in what to do with empathy, combined with a fairly strong ability and youthful hormones. I hijacked a shuttle when I was sixteen -- my uncle left me in the cockpit for a minute, went back on the station for something and it sounded like a fun way to get to Risa. Of course, I had no idea that was too damn far to go in a transorbital shuttle, and ended up drifting in the outer asteroid belt instead of setting up a fleet of Horga'hns on a beach and throwing a party.”

He was believing it, starting to be amused by it, distracted from his own mixture of guilt and distress.

“I was a kid with a self-absorbed mother, and I became a self-absorbed person -- Mother changed, and I changed, eventually. She’s still as flagrantly impetuous as ever, in a more responsible fashion, and I passed the entrance exam and went to the Academy after flunking a semester, retaking and passing the classes, graduating, finishing my intern hours, and starting my doctorate. I flunked because I was wholly distracted by a young lieutenant and the subsequent heartbreak he handed me. When I got to Risa and discovered he’d left me in the lurch, through a message he left me, I got completely drunk and disorderly, threw half the chairs from the open air restaurant into the waves, danced on the bar, took off all my clothes, romped in the sand with my fellow drunks and kicked a poor waiter in the -- “

“Okay,” he said, chuckling. “You’ve made the point.”

“I haven’t made a point. That’s just a series of events in my life that you don’t know about, because I don’t tell anyone aboard this vessel any of those things, nor would I tell any other officer in Starfleet, or anyone else for that matter -- the trouble is, as you know, people make assumptions about people based on their past. Generally, it’s a valid way to understand who the person is, since most of the time people hold to habit. We all do the same thing, making assumptions, which is why you’re so careful. You and I are examples of the rare few who re-create ourselves, into something better.”

She moved away from him and kissed him lightly on the lips. Jean-Luc was in the remarkable state of feeling affection for her, but also somewhat frustrated.

“I’m not telling you so you’ll tell me anything. I’m telling you because it seems to me that we have reached a point where it’s no longer necessary to keep up appearances, with you. I don’t want you to share anything, unless you’re comfortable doing that.”

As he sometimes did with a difficult conversation, he attempted to switch topics. “Can we go back to discussing the original issue, of what to…. Deanna?”

He’d probably noticed the anger in her face. She took a moment to inhale slowly, and consider her words.

“I’d like to discuss duty related issues when I’m actually on duty, if you don’t mind,” she said with as little emotion as she could manage.

His immediate dismay was out of proportion -- she had known from the start that it would take a long time for him to figure it all out. She knew they both tended to work longer than regular shift hours. That had already started to change for her, with Alexander. She didn’t want to see Jean-Luc go to guilt, and his tendency to be hard on himself already sent him there too often. 

“I’m just tired,” she added, rubbing an eye. “I’m not going to be really able to think clearly about it right now.”

“Yes, of course,” he exclaimed. “Of course. What am I doing -- you -- “

“I tended to work at any hour of the day, Jean-Luc. You were in your ready room for twenty-four hours at some points, I remember scolding you for that, citing all kinds of reasons that you should rest. And I am sure you have excellent reasons for being habitually defensive. Old habits are strong habits.”

Now he was fighting with himself -- again. His eyes lost focus as he considered. “I want you to tell me honestly -- do you still think I can handle this?”

“I do. But I don’t know whether or not you’ll choose to, because I also know how hard it is to change very old habits.”

Deanna waited, looking down at her hands, and trying not to fidget. 

“Tomorrow, then,” he said at last. “We’ll talk about it -- if you’re returning to duty.”

She smiled, relieved, starting to breathe again -- she hadn’t recognized that she’d been holding it. 

“I can’t believe I didn’t think about -- I knew better than anyone, how tired you’ve been, and -- “

“Stop,” she exclaimed. “It’s not necessary to start that. Are you staying?”

All the erratic emotions he’d been feeling faded, replaced by shock, and his eyes went wide. “You should rest.”

“And you aren’t going to?”

“I should....” He held out his hands, and she took them. “Do you believe you’ll have difficulty sleeping?”

Deanna knew that she would. But she also knew she had some mild sedative left somewhere in her room. “You don’t have to stay.”

“But….”

“I’m fine. Good night.”

He held her hands, considering, and then pulled her closer to kiss her -- he pulled away and reluctantly left her there, heading for his quarters. 

Deanna put her palms to her cheeks and closed her eyes. She had to get ready for bed, so she could get up in the morning. Take Alexander to school. Go talk to Beverly, about symptoms, to see if she might be ready -- counselors weren’t the only ones who could diagnose trauma symptoms. 

But she knew he was worrying. It wasn’t hard to sense it -- he had a frustrated anxiety that only seemed to grow. The habit of overthinking everything was going to be the hardest of all to break. He might be able to set aside doubt, eventually, and that might help the anxiety. She wondered if it were himself, or her, that he was doubting.

She wrapped her arms across her abdomen. “Computer, one cup of hot chamomile,” she said quietly, rising to fetch it. She was turning from the replicator when her door opened again. Jean-Luc had even changed out of the uniform, wore a robe over a pair of shorts. 

Before he had time to second-guess himself, she smiled in welcome and carried her tea toward the bedroom. “Come on,” she said, touching his arm, and he followed her, catching her hand.

“I was… worried, about you,” he said. "It felt like I'd abandoned you. It's only been a day, since it happened."

“Yes.” Deanna pulled the covers aside, after setting the tea next to her lamp, and turned to find him shaking his head in dismay.

“Of course you would sense that.”

Deanna took the last few pins out of her hair and shook it out, running her fingers through it. “I’m afraid I don’t have as much room.”

“It’s larger than that bed in the resort, anyway.”

It was another moment of unease for her, adjusting to the idea of having him in her room -- after the lights went out, however, it was easier to relax and be comforted by having him there. 

“Do you sleep on your side?” she asked.

It caught him off guard. “Usually. Why?”

“I’ve just noticed that you tend to snore if you’re on your back.”

Puzzlement. “No one’s ever mentioned that before.”

“Or I might be trying to entice you to spoon with me.”

Once they were settled under the thin blanket, she leaned against his chest and let her head droop against his bicep. "Nothing."

He felt the question, rather than asking.

"There's really nothing about your past that would change my mind."

His breath tickled the hairs on her neck. "Only the future?"

"The future is built on now," she said. The tension in him started to ease, and then she could start to feel her own ease.

It solved a couple of things, for her. He didn’t snore, or feel self conscious about the habit, and she had a warm, wonderful man to keep her back warm and the nightmares at bay. And he didn’t suffer either.


	13. The Tipping Point

She came awake when he sat up. Deanna rolled a little, looked up at the back of his head -- familiar view, from watching him on the bridge, on away missions, but not when he felt like this. He was illuminated only by the pale light of a moon -- they were in orbit, probably around Barsan Two, and probably the officers on duty were delivering their cargo under the watchful eye of Beverly Crusher, on the bridge and in command.

Deanna lay quiet and closed her eyes while he struggled to set aside yearnings he didn’t feel he could express. It was as though she could see the strands of connection weakening, rather than strengthening. She hadn’t wanted him to stay because she knew having her physically close had started to be frustrating to him, and that was difficult for him to manage while trying to build a relationship in the way he’d wanted.

“Come back to bed,” she whispered, knowing that Alexander still slept soundly. It was very early -- her little boy woke before she did, typically.

It settled on him like an avalanche, as he knew she knew how he felt. He turned his head, the slight bend in the corner of his mouth matching his chagrin that she’d caught him feeling this way.

“Jean-Luc,” she whispered, caressing the name with wistful desire. While it was true that his departure this morning would likely not be the end of things, she sensed the pull toward retreat. She knew, could cite chapter and verse of how important the physical side of a relationship was to a human. She’d had a few couples in her office wrestling with just that issue. He’d been setting aside those needs with the stalwart awareness that it couldn’t be rushed. But it didn’t have to be this way. She’d wanted to do this before, wanted it now, her body was already responding to him. And now it had started to be more than just expression of sexual attraction, for him, and she began to fear that he had gone into retreat already, had second thoughts about their relationship -- she hadn’t thought he might do this to her, but she’d seen him shut himself down on feelings like this, before. Just because he’d chosen to prioritize career.

He waged an internal war for a moment. Probably still wanting to help her -- he’d been so worried about her. Jean-Luc turned, his profile now visible, and her breath caught. She reached, brushing the hairs along his arm with her fingertips.

He tensed and sat like a statue.

Deanna stretched, arching her back, letting her own tension be apparent. “Jean-Luc.”

He rolled back into bed -- it brought his arm up against hers -- and lay there for a moment. Hesitating again. She decided she wouldn’t make the first move, though she wanted to. She tensed again, stretching, shifting her hips, raising her hands to her head.

Jean-Luc shifted to his right shoulder, facing her, and hesitated again. Reached for the front of her dress, rumpled and the front of it gapping, and slid his hand over her breast. She sensed him wavering, but he was on course, drifting forward slowly, and she closed her eyes again as his lips found hers.

He pinched her nipple between thumb and forefinger while his tongue enjoyed hers. She writhed again, against him, letting her hand cup the back of his head lightly, caressing his bristle-short hair.

Jean-Luc’s desire now became almost palpable to her, as if she could feel it physically, and it wasn’t just that he wanted to touch her, he wanted to give this to her. He was focused now, not wavering. When he broke the kiss, they breathed together for a second and then his mouth was on her cheek, grazing down her neck while he worked the front of her dress open farther.

It was as it always had been. Deanna’s own desire only added to the overwhelming emotions she was sensing from him, and it took effort not to simply respond to it. She knew what would happen if she did that. And this was not a relationship she would ever risk. He was likely to shy away, if something unexpected startled him now.

When his mouth found the nipple he’d been teasing, she gasped and moved in a sinuous wave from shoulders to hips against him. He spent time licking, teasing, nuzzling, even nipping. Minding her responses. Loving her reaction to his touch. She smiled and let him explore further, making noises in the back of her throat to let him know when he did something especially well.

A long moan, when he moved down her abdomen toward her navel, his hands open flat against her skin, fingers curved along her ribs. He had to stop briefly to finish opening the dress and then the bed moved as he did away with the briefs he’d worn to bed, and then he was back to kiss the skin just below the navel. The caress of warm air from his nostrils and the fluttering touch sent her eyes rolling back and bringing her into an unintended back bend, as she rose against him in an agony of want. She’d never been good with sustained teasing, and it was starting to feel that way.

Jean-Luc lost a little momentum. He kissed the soft inner thigh, she felt his chin brushing the thick coils of her pubic hair, and again, closer into the joint. She felt his tongue exploring, his thumb gently sliding in -- an inarticulate whimper accompanied the tensing of her buttocks, but she tried not to dislodge him.

He was thorough and responsive, once he applied himself. She let her hands knot up the covers and let out a cry of joy when the first orgasm flooded her with warmth and sent her into tremors. She knew there could be more, if he continued, but didn’t complain when he rearranged himself to draw her into his arms and kiss her instead. There was plenty of time to learn each other’s preferences and pleasures. At the moment he felt a pressing need to be with her, and there had been so much teasing and physical contact -- she couldn’t deny the pressure had been building for her as well.

A long dry spell had left her tight and his attempt to be gentle didn’t help; she was absolutely ready, but lost patience with his patience, and shoved with her hips, startling him a little but also exciting him with the insistence and with her immediate clench around him. He’d probably imagined that this would be a slow, loving experience for her, but it wasn’t going to go to plan. He kissed her again and she pushed up against him -- he felt hot to the touch, or perhaps she was flushed, likely both. The urgency started to grow, despite his determination to still be in control, as she moved, encouraged with her hips, sliding her knees higher and wrapping her legs around him, until he moved in stronger, harder. She knew it was the beginning of the end when he moaned for the first time -- he lost himself to the sensations and the desire as he picked up the pace, his hips snapping forward now with every thrust.

Now she let herself go, losing herself in the whirlwind of emotion. Her hands sliding up his back and her body rising to his, her eyes closed, her head back -- when he came it was easy -- her muscles contracted as she let herself be immersed in their combined feelings.

It took a few minutes to come back from it, and she held on -- held him in her arms, let him rest there while he trembled a little, his forehead resting on her shoulder while he held himself up on his elbows. At some point he moved enough to put his weight on his right shoulder instead.

Deanna fell asleep again. It wasn’t a deep sleep, so when he moved again, slipping his leg free of hers, she woke and looked at him, laying on his back with his head in the pillow. He watched her through his lashes; a smile tugged his lips.

“It’s almost time to get up, I suppose,” she said.

It generated a little disbelief in him, mentioning such a mundane thing, but she knew he’d never connected sexual behavior with the majority of his mundane life -- she wanted him to start making such connections.

Smiling, she stretched a little, languorously, sending a different message. “But not just yet,” she continued, trailing her toes down his calf. Launching herself toward him, she came down with her breasts against his chest, put her arms around his neck, and kissed him with the leisure of the well-pleased woman.

“This is going to be a real problem,” he murmured, as she pressed her cheek to his shoulder and relaxed again. Trying to tease.

“You don’t feel that way, so I don’t believe you,” she said, reaching up to wrap her hand over his shoulder.

He chuckled. “I have to say that this is different -- not what I expected.”

“I’m starting to think those sexual encounters I assumed you had were in actuality really stimulating kadis-kot tournaments.”

That brought out an authentic belly laugh. “I asked for that.”

“I didn’t follow your plan? You have to tell me the plan so I can do that, you know. It’s okay -- I can follow it next time.” She ran a fingernail around his left nipple. “I have plans, as well.”

His hand tightened in her hair -- his excitement was encouraging. “I expect you do,” he said lightly.

“I know you were expecting to wait. I hope I haven’t disappointed you by failing to be patient in this matter.” Hinting at taking the blame would help ease the post-sex second thoughts, she hoped.

He moved his hips against her. “Disappointment is hardly close to what I’m feeling, is it?”

“Not at the moment. I know you can second-guess yourself, however. I’d prefer that you didn’t.”

“You knew I was struggling with frustration. I would have preferred being less impulsive.”

“You never told me how you were going to know it was time to stop talking and do it,” Deanna said softly. “If it helps ease the guilt you can blame me for misinterpreting your behavior and jumping the gun.”

She wanted him to laugh, but it was a misfire. She sensed the muddle of ire and anxiety that resulted.

“Jean-Luc,” she whispered, raising her head, rising on her elbow, flinging her hair back over her shoulder. In the moonlight she could see his serious expression. “It’s not a mission. It’s a relationship. Timing is a matter of mutual agreement, not something you draw up a schedule for. Shut up and dance.”

He smiled and took the reassurance, and pulled her head down for another kiss. When she pulled away he made a pretense of a frown.

“Alexander’s awake, therefore it’s almost breakfast time. He wakes up on his own set schedule, usually around five thirty.”

“Am I ready for this?” He didn’t feel that way. Clearly he hadn’t even thought about being there in the morning when he’d only intended to be there if she had flashbacks. Hadn’t thought about facing Alexander over breakfast, after being there for dinner.

“Do you plan to spend nights with me, in the future? Or should I prepare for watching you sneak down the corridor in the wee hours of the morning before he wakes up each time?” She got up and left him to his ruminations.

She took a shower first, got dressed, put up her hair, turned into Counselor Troi. While she took a moment to add eye shadow and lipstick, he took his turn in the shower. Alexander was still in his room so she was able to replicate a uniform for Jean-Luc. She wondered if the computer logged such orders generically, or if somewhere in a report the quartermaster would find out she was getting a captain’s uniform out of her replicator. Not that she cared -- but the thought reminded her that life aboard a starship was never as completely private as they liked to pretend.

By the time Alexander emerged from his bedroom door, the captain was standing in the living room, in uniform, his demeanor as it always was on duty -- the little boy thought nothing of it, as she’d expected, because he had no idea about sex yet. At least Worf had been that careful, about what he’d told the boy.

Jean-Luc let his discomfort impel him to skip breakfast -- he told her he was heading to the bridge, to see how things were going with the delivery of the supplies, and she smiled and nodded, and surprised him by leaning to kiss him. Just the sort of kiss one gave a spouse, leaving for work. That in itself was tolerable. He touched her shoulder, and turned to go.

“I knew it,” Alexander said with great glee, after the door closed.

“Of course you did. Would you like cereal or pancakes?” She turned to the replicator, ignoring his grin.

He ate his cereal, and talked about his next project at school, building a model of a Bajoran Temple. Deanna was beginning to think the teacher needed remedial lessons in developmentally-appropriate lesson planning. It sounded like a project to draft Data to help him with, she thought, though she’d have to talk to the android about not helping so much that he was the one doing the project.

“You’re coming sailing with us tonight, right?” Alexander announced, with less questioning and more insistence.

“How about you go learn how to sail, and then next time, I’ll come along and you can teach me how?”

Alexander stared at her. “That doesn’t make any sense. We could learn together at the same time.”

Deanna smiled at her little tiger, putting her chin in her hand, elbow resting on the table next to her bowl of cereal. “ _Tigryonak_ , there is something you need to know about people. It will help you be less frustrated and angry with others. There are plenty of things that will make no sense. Sometimes, people will say no, or yes, and you won’t ever get an answer to the question of why they made the decision. If you can learn to accept when people say no to you, without trying to force or convince them otherwise, you will be a respectful person.”

“But you like spending time with the captain -- “

She held up a finger, and he did as they had agreed. Took a deep breath. Thought about what she had just told him. Took another deep breath, and thought about it some more.

“Okay,” he said at last. “But you’ll go with us next time?”

“I will go sailing with you next time. If you’re right, and the captain and I are going to be mates, you’ll have a stepfather. So you get to spend time with him sometimes without me, because you need to get used to each other. That would be my ‘why’ -- I’d like you to be comfortable with each other. I don't think you are yet.”

“Is that why he’s sort of nervous sometimes?”

Deanna picked up her spoon. “I think so, maybe. Eat your cereal, so we’re not late to school.”

She got him there a little early, kissed him good-bye, and headed for her office out of habit. Then it occurred to her that she was still off duty, and went to the bridge.

The viewscreen showed Barsan Two, still. Mr. Natchez smiled up at her from ops as she sidled toward the ready room door. The captain let her in, and she paid close attention as she approached the desk as she had a thousand times before. Since he showed no great disturbance, no heightened emotional reaction to her presence, she proceeded with her plan.

“I need to talk to you,” she said, sitting down.

The smile dwindled. “Counselor?”

She shook her head, gave him an apologetic smile. “I know it’s probably better to not make a habit of discussing personal issues while we’re on duty. But I want to have the conversation while you’re more grounded in yourself. That would make the ready room a good place.”

That caused an immediate defensive reaction, as it made him anxious. But he nodded, and accepted, trusting her judgment. “What would you like to discuss?”

“I wanted to make sure that you still want to have a relationship with me. That you are not questioning or doubting this, or feeling that I’m being….” There really was no other word for it. “Manipulative.”

Disbelief, first, and then complete frustration and anger. He came up out of the chair and stopped himself, ending up standing and glaring at her. But he stood silently. Waiting.

“I’m not trying to,” she said softly. “I don’t want to. I never mean to, but it’s easy at times for people to feel that I am, because if I allow myself to use whatever I sense to guide my behavior, it feels invasive to people who don’t have empathy. I did that this morning, responding to you that way. I wanted to make love with you -- I hope you have no question there. I encouraged it this morning in spite of knowing you wanted to wait, because I knew it had reached a point at which you were actively shutting down emotions rather than turning toward me, and I don’t want that to become a habit.”

He sat down again, staring at her. “I don’t want you to capitulate because you think I might leave, or because I feel frustrated,” he exclaimed in a hard, strained tone.

“I didn’t. Jean-Luc….” Deanna folded her hands in her lap and composed herself, trying not to let the anxiety get in the way. She leaned a little forward and met his gaze. “I have a lot to explain to you, about me. I’m trying not to tell you all at once, and overwhelm you. I’m trying to tell you things as they are relevant to us. I’ve made the mistake of telling too much, too soon, before, and I’ve gone the other way, not told enough until too late. It’s so hard to know how someone will take it. But it’s going faster, with you, than it ever has. Because I trust you, and I think you trust me well enough. I think I can tell you some of these things now. You already knew more about me than anyone else I’ve ever been with.”

“I suppose I could say the same. In fact, you know more about me than the vast majority of my friends.” He still glared a little at her, but most of the anger had subsided.

“Did it seem to you that I wanted it, this morning? Did it feel like I was forcing myself at all?”

He looked away, at the monitor briefly, then at some point in the air -- thinking. Smiling a little, remembering. “No,” he said, losing some of the stiffness and hardness in his voice. “I know it was mutual.”

“That’s part of what I want to talk about. You said it was different, and I made a joke. At the time I didn’t want to destroy the mood with extended discussion. It is different. I suspect you’ll think later that I’m actually being quite restrained…. But we can talk about that later.”

“And everything else you haven’t told me, that I should know?”

“I want to tell you. I will.”

He came forward in the chair and crossed his arms on the edge of the desk. He seemed to be shifting into the mood he typically fell into, when he’d misjudged something. It started to make her nervous, but he said, “You have been guiding me, sometimes, haven’t you? Saying things to help me not sabotage myself. Because I do overthink, and I do sabotage myself by letting doubt eat away at me before I can build a solid relationship with someone.”

She dropped her gaze and tried not to start crying.

“But it's not that you guide me to do things I don't intend to do. You helped me. You’ve reacted to how I feel before, in the context of counseling. I don’t have a problem with that. I know you want me to be happy, make choices for myself. I can see how it would be problematic in a relationship, how you had difficulties with it before. I can see why you would be reticent to say much until you’re certain the other person won’t react in an untoward manner. But you could have said -- ”

Deanna couldn’t look at him, and wished she could quit feeling this anxious so she could sense what was going on in the silence. But she sat still as she could, hands folded in her lap, waiting, hoping she was right, that he would understand.

“You couldn’t have said,” he said quietly. “I couldn’t say, and you couldn’t say, and it has to happen as you say. In its own time. It’s part of the process. It can't be forced, or planned, or orchestrated just so. It's not a mission. I can't determine the future. I can only choose -- now.”

Her throat felt tight and it was hard to breathe. She dragged her eyes upward, and found him looking at her with an expression she didn’t expect. Sympathy, and love, and sorrow. She must not be as calm as she wanted to appear -- he left his chair, came around the desk, sat with her, turning the other chair to face her and reaching for her hand.

“You’re afraid,” he said quietly. “This is where too many relationships died, isn’t it? But Deanna, I already know you, I know you wouldn’t manipulate me that way. You’ve always been more open than that. We can’t always explain things immediately, but you’ve never failed to explain to me -- ”

To her frustration, the tears started, and he didn’t hesitate to pull her into his arms and hold her. At least the crying didn’t last long. He let go, as she sat back and rubbed her eyes. “Sorry.”

“This sounds like it’s always been a difficult thing, a difficult phase to get through. But I don’t intend to make this any more difficult than it has to be. You can tell me whatever you want, whenever you want, and I can trust you to be honest with me. I trust your sense of timing. I know that I can.”

She smiled, trying to take a few more breaths. “You’re right. This is a hard thing to explain to people. I was putting my faith in the fact that you have always heard me out, before you made a judgment, but it’s still difficult to do.”

Jean-Luc touched her face gently. “I know you don’t back away just because things are difficult. I’ve never been what anyone would call easy.”

“So we’ll be difficult together, now?” Deanna grinned.

“You can tell me anything,” he said with a mischievous grin. It was an echo of something she had told him, probably the third or fourth counseling session.

“I see,” she replied, answering the fond light in his eyes with a happy smile. “But can you replicate something to wash my face with?”

“And a cup of hot tea,” he said, rising to head for the replicator. “But then you get to go away again, because you aren’t supposed to be on duty and this is a work area.”

“Yes, sir.”

He returned with a wash cloth and the cup of tea. “And I refuse to sneak anywhere. If the carpet in the corridor between our quarters starts to show excessive wear, we’ll just have to move in together.”

That could have been just humor, to help her recover, shift the mood, but he said it with more conviction than his tone indicated, and looked her in the eye as he said it.

She nodded, accepted the cloth and the tea, and started to wipe her face -- she’d streaked her makeup. “Thank you,” she said warmly, gazing up at him and hoping he knew she didn’t just mean the tea.

“Thank you, for telling me about it.”

She sipped the tea. “If you wouldn’t mind -- do I have any smears left?”

Jean-Luc took the cloth, and gently wiped along her temple and again along her cheek. “There you go. Now finish your tea.”

Deanna sat quietly -- he returned to his desk and went about whatever he’d been doing when she came in, and she sipped and took her time calming down, trying not to think too much about the fact that he’d understood without the explanations that others had needed. It made her start to feel like crying, again.

“Alexander is looking forward to sailing,” she said at last. “Will you be coming for dinner?”

“Unless something comes up, I can.” 

“I’ll leave it up to you, to come or not -- you have an open standing invitation. I expect that each of us will have adjustments to make, we’ve been accustomed to solitude for most of our lives. It won’t be comfortable to suddenly start spending every moment together. So I want you to be comfortable, telling me if you need time to yourself, so I can feel comfortable telling you the same. I will ask, sometimes, if I’ve had a very long day with too many stressful appointments, because I’ll need it.”

He smiled happily, as she spoke, and nodded. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

She got a few double-takes, as she made her way off the bridge and back to her quarters; she’d gone in with makeup and come back a mess. But she didn’t care, for once, what anyone else aboard thought. She loved him, and he had not failed her -- he had set aside his own initial emotional response and listened, and understood.

Sitting at her dressing table, she looked at her collected things -- jewelry and makeup, and hair ornaments. Some of them were gifts she’d been given, along the way. Memories. She plucked a bracelet out of the drawer -- Will had gotten it for her, on one of his leaves. She tossed it on the floor.

Each piece in turn was examined and judged -- at the end of her sorting, she carried a pile to the recycler and watched the entire mess vanish into their constituent atoms.

Out with the old, in with the real deal.

She went about tidying up the dressing table, and noticed that she had missed something. She pulled the drawer all the way out, and plucked the ring from the back, where it had wedged between the organizer and the side of the drawer. It was the engagement ring -- Will’s ring, that he’d given her so long ago. She’d forgotten all about it, kept it all these years, riding around with the rest of her jewelry and never worn, and now she weighed it in her palm and thought about all the things she had at one time wanted to do. Throw it in his face, throw it off a cliff, bury it in a dung heap, phaser it away to nothing.

Deanna went back to the replicator, pressed the recycle button, and dropped it in. And it was gone. Just like Will.

She went back to cleaning up the dressing table, washed her face again, re-applied her eye makeup, and headed out to Ten Forward. She hadn’t really talked to Guinan in a long time. She wanted to unwind with a friend, before she had to call Lettie for a followup session.


	14. The Flashback

It was just past fifteen hundred when Deanna left her quarters -- she wavered in the empty corridor, feeling bereft. She turned right automatically and walked, not caring where she went. When a door opened she startled and found herself almost bumping into the captain.

“Deanna,” he exclaimed, surprised and putting his hands to her shoulders. 

“Sorry,” she blurted. 

“What’s happened? You look -- come in,” he said, guiding her through his door.

“You shouldn’t let me interrupt you. I was just going for a walk, to clear my head a little.”

She found herself on his couch, holding another cup of tea -- she suspected she would have a tea habit to rival his, soon. But the hot cup in hand stabilized her, grounded her more, and she sipped.

“Feeling better?” he asked, sitting next to her and touching her arm.

“Yes, thank you.” She smiled, but couldn’t keep it going. “I talked to Dr. Carlson again, just now. That’s why I’m a little out of it.”

“Meaning something in the session was triggering? So it’s still a problem.”

“I’d like to say it’s not, believe me. But I could probably work. It’s impossible that anyone not involved in the incident would know anything about it, so there would be no triggers.”

“I didn’t think a suit designed for skydiving would remind me of the Borg.”

Deanna raised her head, looked at him, as he waited for her response with a straight face and a concern she knew she hadn’t addressed. Because he was right, even if she didn’t want him to be. And he was the biggest trigger of all -- she wondered what would happen if he started laughing hard. Or Beverly.

“You’re making me repeat things back to you,” he said at last. “And you’re making me realize that I should have done better at doing as you suggested, because I was a miserable example -- please don’t push yourself back to work too soon.”

She startled him by leaning forward, setting the tea on the table, and putting her hands to her forehead. He touched her shoulder, slid his hand up under her hair, which she’d left loose around her shoulders.

“Let me guess, you’re going crazy, being on leave.”

“Everyone I want to talk to is on duty. I can’t take Alexander out of school, I can’t spend all my time in Ten Forward.”

“You have difficulty immersing yourself in holodeck programs?”

She sat up and reached for the tea again. “I have no interest in talking to hollow shells of people. If you were to join me in my list of programs, you would find a copy of Worf’s martial arts program, and a series of simulations of peaceful places without people.”

He was taken aback at the mention of Worf’s program. “How many levels have you conquered?”

“I made it to level three. I’m not good enough to make it past the last wave of warriors.”

Jean-Luc chuckled. “You can’t make it past five Klingon warriors, and you think that’s not good.”

“Not what I said, Jean-Luc.”

“I didn’t know you were working with weapons. The times I’ve been in the gym, when your class was in progress, I never saw weapons.”

“We do that in the holodeck where we can use them against the holograms. Not each other. Worf didn’t want us to hurt each other accidentally. I should get back to my workout schedule.”

Jean-Luc tilted his head, studying her. “You use them on the holodeck where it’s private. You don’t want to be observed, being violent.”

“Yes.”

His hands, when he took her hands then moved to grip her shoulders, were more confident than before -- a byproduct of last night. He could touch her now, with confidence. “You hide so much of yourself.”

“That sounds familiar,” she whispered.

A moment of thought and he felt a sudden wave of anxiety -- he’d experienced an epiphany of some sort. “I was hesitating because I was unsure,” he said, alarmed. “I told myself wanted you to be sure. But you know me better than I know you. I know what all your friends know, which isn’t enough -- bits and pieces of you. You know everything I’ve ever told you in counseling, and who I am off duty, and who I’ve been as an officer -- you also know me in a way that no one else can, because of empathy.”

He stared into her eyes, and his frustration with himself ebbed as he did so. She smiled and gazed back at him.

“You knew that’s what I was doing -- projecting. You waited for me to realize it.”

“I’m not your therapist. I’m not going to discuss things like projection any further. Do you feel badly, that we made love last night?”

He sat back, removing his hands and giving the matter more thought than she expected. “I really can’t say that I do. I do wonder where we’re going, from here.”

“You’re anxious about it. Perhaps you are wondering about actually having a sexual relationship with me, an officer on your senior staff, rather than worrying about whether or not we’re going to have sex the next time I try to entice you in some way.”

He snorted at it. Disgruntled by her frank assessment. “You don’t have any anxiety about any of it. Do you?”

“I enjoy spending time with you. And I know that sex has no more meaning than we ascribe to it, no more power than we give it -- but I know that you need it in the kind of relationship you want to have with me, because it’s important to you. I know that you’re able to maintain a friendship with someone with whom you’ve engaged in sex -- the part of the relationship that would prevent future friendship would be the emotional intimacy, not physical. And that would also be the part that makes it difficult to keep me in a subordinate role as an officer.”

He swayed back slightly, eyeing her, sorting through what she was saying. Applying his own thought process to it, about to react, and she loved him -- loved the way he was, all his quirks and difficulties with things that came more easily to others. 

“It’s not true, that you don’t know me,” she said softly. “You do know me better than anyone else -- better than my mother, or even Beverly. She doesn’t know about Ian -- you were there, when I went through the grief of losing him. We’ve helped each other through things many times, you and I, and that the relationship changes doesn’t mean we aren’t able to continue doing so, only the way we do it changes.” She thought that the recent events were evidence enough of that.

“But Will -- “

Deanna knew that would come up, eventually, and touched his face in an attempt to counter the immediate regret that he’d mentioned Will. “He was a friend. That, for me, was something different altogether than what you’re expecting friendship to be. You have been seeing my behavior through your cultural filters, just as so many people do, interpreting my behavior in a different way. Betazoid relationships are different -- we have different boundaries than humans do. I may have a human half, but I was raised on Betazed and that’s the culture I live in, that guides my behavior. I went through a lot of soul-searching at one point when I was in school, during the period I was grieving the loss of a marriage I thought I desired so intensely, and came to the conclusion that it was actually a wake-up call -- I needed to determine who I really was.”

Deanna took his hands -- now it was him who needed the grounding. He was starting to feel more of the usual, dismayed that he hadn’t known this about her culture. He enjoyed learning about other cultures immensely and he was starting to believe he’d overlooked her. No need for telepathy to understand that.

“Humans will talk about finding themselves, as if they are already something defined, and all they have to do is look around to find it. Betazoids talk about becoming and choosing, and being what we feel is best suited to our nature, our core self, which suits me more -- it’s fluid and organic, giving the opportunity to be so many things over our long life span. I may decide, in another twenty years, that I would prefer to be a doctor. Perhaps I will be starship captain. At the time Will left me all those years ago, I was a confused, anguished and self-focused little girl. It’s not the way he saw me, even then. I’ve changed and grown in ways that he never bothered to track and I’ve never bothered to inform him of -- I get to choose what I share just as everyone else does. He doesn’t notice things in the personal realm with the same acuity that he does in the professional -- it’s not in his nature, observation and rational thought are what he does on duty, off duty he goes through the cycle of relationships with the same process each time. Urges first, thought later.”

Jean-Luc smirked at it. “I wasn’t so observant that I noticed that about him. It does make sense, given some of the difficulties he had when relationships and duty collided. I haven’t been immune to strong passions, either, you know. I’ve been -- ”

She waited through the pause. If he decided to overcome his reluctance to share, finally, that would be his choice without a word from her. She ran her thumb gently over his fingers, still holding both his hands in hers. 

“Vash has been tracking me,” he confessed. “She showed up on one of my more recent leaves, just last year, and tried to convince me that we should go away together, explore the galaxy together, as free agents instead of allying ourselves with any larger institution -- she actually had a plan. If we pooled our resources it would be possible.”

She could tell it had an appeal. There had been difficult missions that challenged him to go against his own values, and sometimes he chafed at orders that ran counter to what he thought should happen. And Vash had always appealed to him on a very basic, sensual level. Deanna waited, listened, for him to continue.

“She showed up at Lavonia for other reasons -- as you can see I didn’t go with her, when she made the proposition, and she finally started to approach different agencies about participation in legitimate efforts. But she’s sent me messages -- I refused to take direct calls -- trying to find out if I might be more open to it, and at the resort she tried to talk me into her room. She cornered me on the fourth floor after following me there, when I left the restaurant. Watching you dance that way… excited me, to the point that remaining in a public place was uncomfortable, and Vash pursued me. I told her to leave me alone rather forcefully and she shoved me against the wall and started kissing me. It -- I didn’t want it. I could only think of you.“ 

“And no was not enough for her,” Deanna said. She grinned. “You should send her a message.”

It shocked him. “What?”

“Tell her to meet you in two weeks, on Risa, in the Bolian bar at the fourth table from the door, for dinner. I’ll send a similar message to Will. Two pig-headed people who can’t take no for answer -- they’ll either get the message or run off together and leave us the hell alone.”

It sent him into such a gale of laughter that it shocked her -- and then she found herself fighting with a flashback, but the emotional tenor of the moment was so entirely different. He wasn’t mocking her -- the great amusement was laced throughout with love, and appreciation, and happiness that it kept her from experiencing the flashback fully.

She joined him laughing at it, but he noticed she wasn’t as amused. And then it occurred to him -- and it all stopped, abruptly. “Deanna?”

“I think you might have rewritten it,” she exclaimed. Her hands flew to her cheeks, as she contemplated it with wide eyes. “The emotions were so different, between the memory and how you were feeling just now. I had a flashback and it clashed so much that it made the experience completely different. I think it’s gone.”

“Wonderful,” he exclaimed. “Deanna, that’s wonderful news.“

“It’s more than that. I have to think about this. There are implications,” she said, thinking about the intensity of the flashbacks and what it had taken to counter it. She grinned at him. 

“Now you have something to do until you go back on duty?” He was so happy, and it gave him an energy that she wished he could have more opportunities to experience with him.

Of course, that would be entirely possible, perhaps even likely. 

Deanna kissed him on the cheek. “I have to go get Alexander, and take him to his babysitter. His schedule is important,” she continued when he started to question. “Structure is very important for children and I’ll maintain it even though I could watch him myself. Besides, I have some preliminary work to do. I feel a paper coming on. There’s usually plenty of opportunities for working against trauma and I have to draft a release for clients, so I can have their permission to start to work on a new method of trauma treatment with them.”

Jean-Luc’s pride showed in his face. “I’ll look forward to reading it. I might even understand it.”

“You might even help me with it. You’ll be by to get Alexander after dinner?”

“Yes, and when we get back from the holodeck a couple of hours later, you’ll be ready to accompany us to Data’s recital,” he said. “Not wearing a uniform, I hope.”

She almost teased, suggesting several modes of revealing dress just to be provocative, but smiled and set all that aside. “That sounds wonderful.”

He spent a moment feeling a little regret. “I will probably be working through dinner.”

“All right. We’ll see you when you get there.”

She left him sitting there, watching her go, and returned to her quarters to start a journal entry, in an attempt to document everything related to the flashback while it was still fresh in her memory.


	15. Meltdown, part II

Deanna had been aware of Alexander’s anger for a few moments -- she put down her padd, left her quarters, walked toward the lift. While she rode two decks down she sensed the anger flaring into rage.

“Troi to Crusher -- we need you in holodeck two, with a medkit!”

“Acknowledged.”

She sensed Beverly’s anxiety peripherally, but focused on the escalation of rage -- getting closer to it made it harder to cope with, herself. She left the lift at a run and didn’t hesitate at the holodeck doors, which fortunately opened as she approached.

The incoherent roaring was almost deafening -- Jean-Luc stood on the grid, the simulation cancelled, holding a writhing Alexander in his arms. He had the boy’s wrists but kept having to pull Alexander’s arms in again, pull the boy in against him repeatedly, ineffectively, and when he finally noticed her standing several paces away he felt immediate gratitude.

“Let him go,” she shouted over the high-pitched version of a Klingon bellowing in rage.

When he did, Alexander flew at her -- he landed a blow as high as he could, her right breast, and then she caught him by both wrists and spun him about so she had him tightly held against her, his back planted along her right leg and hip -- his arms crossed across his little chest and effectively pinning him against her. With the bend of her knee and a slight tip backward, his feet left the ground.

He raged at being helpless, raged and yelled and kicked, but since he couldn’t get any traction or brace himself against anything, his attempts were useless.

She had to work hard to keep them upright, keep him balanced, it wasn’t a natural position to stand in and having a thrashing child on her thigh continually throwing her off balance didn’t help. His heels would be leaving bruises all over her calf, she thought grimly, but kept him there. 

Until his raging stopped -- it was a fine line, between the rage and the anguish, but she sensed the change as he lost momentum and the tone of his cries became more upset than angry, and she dropped both of them to the floor, careful not to let him fall -- letting go of his wrists, she wrapped her arms around him and moved him right, against her arm and turned slightly so she could cradle him like a baby.

His wailing started to sound like he was saying something, and as he became more understandable it was as she expected. Self hatred was a horrible thing for a child so young. But he was crying about the tantrum, about being bad, terrified that he would be rejected as he felt he deserved to be, for being so out of control and filled with rage. She noticed peripherally that Beverly was there and using a tricorder, but the doctor said nothing and retreated again.

It took long minutes for his crying to slow down, for the rant to stop, and when he was sniffling and letting himself rest in her arms -- if only because he had exhausted himself -- she started to stroke his hair and hum a lullaby.

Beverly was standing with Jean-Luc just out of arm’s reach, she saw. As still and as shocked as they likely had been, for the duration of the tantrum. 

“Come here,” Deanna said, fixing her eyes on Jean-Luc’s. He was in motion at once, and kneeled in front of her on one knee. She was able to transfer the little boy into his arms -- he wasn’t entirely comfortable with it, but he took Alexander from her, and handled the boy’s weight more easily than she could.

“Hold him, tightly. Tell him he didn’t do anything wrong. Tell him how you feel about him.”

Deanna got to her feet slowly -- she’d banged her knee dropping to the floor -- and went to Beverly, not even caring to listen as Jean-Luc muttered reassurances. Her presence in front of him would only remind him he had an audience, and make him self-conscious. 

Beverly was stone sober, meeting her eyes with complete understanding. “You said he had attachment issues. I thought you might be too close, too biased, but I didn’t see it was this bad.”

Deanna answered in the same very quiet, very serious tone. “It’s going to take a long time.”

“But you have help,” Beverly said, glancing at Jean-Luc’s back as he held Alexander. He stood slowly, and turned.

“He’s asleep,” he said quietly.

“He’ll probably sleep until morning,” Deanna said, a little less quiet. Alexander could sleep through a red alert when he was this exhausted. “When I picked him up from school the teacher said he hadn’t gotten PE -- they rescheduled it to tomorrow, to have a special presentation during that period. I tried to get him to exercise but I think it wasn’t enough. I’m sorry he had this in the middle of your visit.”

“What happened?” Beverly asked.

“We were just starting to sail. He was leaning a little too hard on the rudder and broke it off in his hands. I had the computer reset it and thought we were fine. He was too careful, then, and now that I’m thinking about it he was a bit too upset about making a mistake a little later, and then he gave one of the lines a good yank and tore it off -- it fell on him and he started to shriek, and that was the end of his control. He tore down a sail and started throwing things overboard, and put a fist through a porthole, so I stopped the program and tried to hold him.”

“I think you did as well as could be expected,” Deanna said, looking at Alexander’s face -- he still frowned even in his sleep. 

“We should put him to bed,” Jean-Luc said. 

He carried Alexander all the way back to her quarters. Beverly took her leave of them in the corridor, heading for her own suite after saying good night. 

In Alexander’s room, Jean-Luc put the boy carefully on the bed, and then Deanna watched in surprise as he took off Alexander’s shoes, then maneuvered him under the covers. He rested a hand on the little ridges on Alexander’s forehead and turned to take Deanna’s arm, as they left him to sleep. He stopped her in the living room and looked her in the eye, his hand still lightly gripping her elbow.

“It isn’t your fault,” he said.

Deanna shook her head and took a step, and melted against him, her arms sliding up to go around his neck. He held her tightly for a few moments.

“I don’t think I’ll make it to the recital,” she murmured. 

“No, I imagine it’s exhausting, being confronted with so much rage. On top of your own difficulties, from the incident in the nacelle.”

“You should go. I’m not going to be worth much tonight. Enjoy the recital.”

He kissed her forehead and lingered to hold her for a minute more, and went without further discussion. 

She went through the sonic shower, put on a silk shift to sleep in, and fell into bed without further thought. She must have fallen asleep immediately -- when she woke again, the hair clip she’d forgotten was digging into the back of her head just with the pressure of the pillow. She pushed herself up on an elbow just enough to tear it from her hair, tossed it on the night stand, and collapsed back into bed. 

Then she heard the movement -- she came upright and gasped.

“Deanna,” came the response, soothing, calm, and she relaxed again. “I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t think you would come back -- how was the recital?”

As she calmed, she sensed the amusement, at that. “It was fine. I wanted to check on you -- both of you.”

She smiled up at the shadowy figure standing next to the bed. “He always sleeps soundly, after a meltdown. I try.”

“Hmm, sounds familiar. But I’ve had other reasons for insomnia, lately.”

“You seemed to sleep well enough with me,” she said, not really thinking much about it.

Jean-Luc sat on the edge of the bed. “Yes.”

Deanna moved over, shoving over covers invitingly. There still wasn't enough room, she had to drape a leg over him and use his shoulder for a pillow, but that seemed to work for him, just fine.

She noticed after a few minutes of his being flat on his back that although he was falling asleep, she didn’t hear him snore. Curious. She smiled, and relaxed against his warm, bare arm.

His movement woke her, but she checked the clock on her night stand and found that it was five hundred hours -- perhaps this was his usual waking time. She rolled in place and pushed pillows up to support her back, and looked at him in the starlight. The ship was at warp, toward the starbase.

“Sorry,” he said, doing the same so he could sit next to her. “My arm fell asleep. Sleep well?”

“Yes. How was the sailing, before he lost it?”

He sighed, taking her hand and letting their hands rest on the covers. “He was excited and he listened well enough. We were underway for maybe fifteen minutes, and I was showing him how the sails worked, how to adjust them to tack, when he broke the rudder.”

“I hope you don’t feel guilty.” Deanna leaned her head on his arm. “I have to make sure he gets adequate exercise. It helps. And I should teach you how to hold him, before I let you try to do something with him on your own.”

“Are you going by instinct, or is there research into this sort of thing? You seem to be handling everything very well.”

“Research, but mostly things that Worf told me combined with what I know about Klingon neurobiology. Beverly has examined him repeatedly -- I wanted her there last night in case someone got hurt, but she scanned him with the tricorder while I held him as well. She’s monitoring and collecting data, to help me.”

Jean-Luc nodded, a little surprised and impressed. “I’d like to help.”

“You already have. You did very well, last night.” And some day, he might feel more confidence in handling Alexander, and be able to do better. “Worf would be grateful.”

He put an arm around her, and pressed his lips to her temple. “At the recital, I spent some of the time thinking about what you told me, earlier. About you and Will.”

She sighed. “Why would you do that? I don’t.”

“It was more about you, than him. What you said about defining friendship differently. I have been rethinking a few things.”

“Of course you have. To simply accept it and move on would be wholly un-Picard.”

He tensed, making her regret it. But then proceeded to surprise her by feeling pleased.

“I’m sorry. What did you rethink?”

“I appreciate your sarcasm,” he said happily. “I was thinking about the times I there, when Will acted as if he -- “ The pause was filled with tension, as he appeared to be groping for how to say it.

“Will would act as if he and I were a couple, and sometimes as if he had some proprietary claim over me,” Deanna filled in. “As if he could expect me to do as he wanted.”

“And, what he wanted was not what you wanted?”

“I wanted him to evolve past being selfish, in his appetites. I wanted to be seen as more than a sexual object.”

“But he would talk about you…. I believed he had a great deal of respect for you. That he saw you as an officer, as I did, that he admired your professionalism.”

“And when I was interested in someone, spending time with someone, he avoided me. He’d be polite and professional. And behind the straight face, he resented. When Wyatt came aboard he would hardly talk to me, became cold, as if I had anything to do with what my parents did when I was a child. When he was flirting with someone -- something that happened far more often than you are aware of, I’m certain -- he could be the same, cool and minimally friendly to me. The back-and-forth attitude led me to finally conclude the only rational response was to behave in a way consistent with my own nature, and to stop trying to argue or reason with him. And so I did.”

“I must say that my faith in my own judgment has been shaken. This isn’t what I thought I witnessed.”

Deanna kissed his bare shoulder, and balanced her chin on it. “Partly my doing. I never wanted to cause any harm, to anyone. I didn’t want to do anything that would result in your seeing him any differently than you did. We were all friends.”

“But now?”

“I don’t know.” Deanna smiled sadly, thinking about Wyatt. “But I know that if I were forced to choose between being his friend and being with you that he would lose. I don’t know, but I suspect, that when he finds out I am with you, he will force me to choose. But I won’t accept his inability to accommodate my needs any longer.”

Jean-Luc fell silent and sat stiffly, anxious and almost fearful. She leaned on him and waited.

“What are your needs?” he asked finally.

“You want my expectations,” she amended. “I have everything I need. You are asking what I want from you, in the relationship we are creating?”

“Yes. I don’t know… if I am really able to fulfill your expectations.”

She smiled, leaned to kiss his cheek, rubbing her nose along his ear lobe. “If you couldn’t, I would have been gently pushing you back to being my captain only, instead of letting you continue to approach me. I would never have told you how I feel.”

“Tell me anyway. What you expect.”

“I expect you to be with me, until you decide not to be. What do you expect of me?”

“The same, I suppose, but it occurs to me that you have already stated that you have different boundaries, than most humans.”

“It isn’t unusual for people to assume Betazoids are not monogamous, or that we’re somehow wildly sexual, or bisexual. The truth is that we’re all whoever we decide to be. I only have the time in my life for one partner. I have one, and since I know it’s likely you would be unhappy if I took a second -- Jean-Luc?”

“I’m just -- “

She rose on her knees and climbed over to sit astride his legs, and put her hands on his shoulders. “Don’t be afraid to tell me you want me all to yourself. You want me to tell you the same. I know that in this relationship I will only be happy if you are -- so tell me what would make you happy.”

“I want you to tell me the truth.”

“I love you,” she said, settling a little on his thighs. “If you wish, I can promise fidelity. I probably wouldn’t need to -- I feel that strongly about you that I doubt anyone else would interest me.”

Jean-Luc raised his head and seemed to be hoping, so she bent her head to kiss him. His hand went to her buttock, but she knew they had to stop. Alexander was slowly rousing himself and she knew he would be anxious for reassurance.

“We should get dressed,” she said, moving off and heading for the bathroom. 

This time, he’d brought a uniform, and when they went out to breakfast Alexander was coming out as well. She held out her arms for him to run in for a tight hug. Jean-Luc sat down with them, and she gave them croissants, coffee, and some fruit without being asked. And then Deanna paused and went to the door. As she thought, Beverly was heading down the corridor -- from her own quarters to Jean-Luc’s apparently. Beverly’s suite was two doors the other direction.

“In here,” Deanna said. “We just sat down.”

Beverly grinned and turned with a spring in her step. By the time she sat down at the table, she was as serious as she needed to be -- Jean-Luc was momentarily anxious but settled as he realized he wasn’t about to be teased. Deanna smiled and went to get herself some yogurt.


	16. The Inverse Picard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Journey's End and Preemptive Strike are the episodes on deck. There are others in between the two, but the one focusing on Alexander won't happen with Worf gone, and the one featuring Jason Vigo can wait for a while. 
> 
> The inverse Picard is a term borrowed from Fashion It So, a fabulous Tumblr blog that critiques costuming choices in TNG. Troi's hair style in one of the later episodes is referred to as an inverse Picard, i.e., she has Really Big Hair. If humor about pleats and shoulder pads in the Trek universe is your style, check it out.

Deanna spent the four day journey to the starbase teaching her friends on the senior staff the specific hold she’d used on Alexander, which had been something she had researched and discovered in procedures used by homes for troubled children. The morning they arrived, she met with Beverly and they reviewed her findings, and came up with what would have been an incredibly aggressive activity schedule, had Alexander been more human and less Klingon. His physiology was almost entirely Klingon.

“I had to do the same for Worf,” Beverly explained. “Remember how he was in the beginning, how aggressive he would get?”

“I thought he was just overzealous in training.”

“Oh, no. It calmed him down. He found he was better able to focus with all the exercise.” Beverly put the padd in the slot on her desk. “Are you coming with me, when we dock?”

“I was hoping to finish the bridge test. I only have two sections left. Engineering and operations.” She’d been on duty for a day.

“You can do that tomorrow. You’re ready for it.” Beverly brought her hands up under her chin and balanced her head on her knuckles. “Deanna, don’t you hear it? The siren song of new dresses, sexy lingerie, slinky things to wear for five minutes? Aren't you overdue for some pampering?”

Deanna smiled -- Jean-Luc had been alternating, since she hadn’t had another flashback, between his quarters and hers. He had felt interest, but hadn’t pursued another lovemaking session, and she wasn’t going to be aggressive. She thought he might be planning something. But since he hadn't seen what she already had, she didn't have an urgent need to shop.

“You just complained the other day you hadn’t had a decent facial since the staff changed in the salon," Beverly said, wheedling.

“I’ll go with you but only because I know you won’t, if I don’t go with you. You’re the one who needs to be dragged kicking and screaming into something relaxing.”

“So go get changed -- no uniforms. I’ll let the captain know we’re going.”

Beverly was putting Selar in charge of an inventory when Deanna arrived. She turned with a smile. “Ready when you are.” She’d changed already, into quite drab clothing.

“I’m not sure you have the right idea,” Deanna said as they left and headed for the nearest lift. “That looks like an outfit you’d wear on an expedition.”

Beverly glanced down at her green blouse with a darker vest over it, and the tan slacks. “It’s not a uniform and it’s comfortable for walking. And I won’t get catcalls.”

“I doubt I’ll get any, either. It’s a starbase. It’s not Deep Space Nine, or Risa.” Deanna wore a pale blue dress, very modest, and had shoved a band in her hair to hold it back from her face.

“He’d better take you out to dinner at least once. There’s a nice selection of restaurants at this starbase.” Beverly had taken to using pronouns, so she could talk about her relationship with Jean-Luc in the corridors.

The lift stopped on deck eight, where Data joined them. Still in uniform but he left the lift with them, down the corridor from the transporter room. “Are you going shopping?” Deanna asked him.

“Yes, I am. I would like to find a birthday present for Alexander. Do you have any suggestions?”

Deanna took Data’s arm, as she sometimes did with her friends. “He would love anything he can put together -- the captain managed to interest him in building models, boats so far. I’d think he would love to try something like a starship model.”

“He loves animals, too,” Beverly said. “But toy animals would probably be more suitable if you went that route.”

“Yes, I definitely don’t need a cat or a targ,” Deanna exclaimed.

They went in the transporter room and beamed to the starbase, and went together to the commercial levels. Deanna continued to hang on Data’s arm, and the android kept glancing at her.

“Something wrong, Data?”

“I am not certain. You are engaging in an affectionate gesture that confuses me.”

Deanna slowed, as they drew near an eating establishment that appeared to be serving Malorcan food. Beverly was confused, as well. Deanna let go of his arm. “I’ve done it before. It’s just a way of expression affection.”

“You were not involved with someone before.”

Deanna tried, as she usually did when Data came out with something that reminded her he was still a work in progress, to press her lips together to avoid an amused grin. “I thought you had a complete database that told you all about the differences between gestures between friends and those between lovers.”

“There is some ambiguity present in some mannerisms, from one culture to another. And I have observed that at times that some individuals may be more protective than others. I would rather avoid misunderstanding, given the parties involved.”

Deanna couldn’t help it. She threw her arms around the android’s neck and kissed his cheek. He was, of course, stiffer than stiff -- it was his general state of being. “You are a sweet man,” she told him.

“I am not a man, Deanna.”

“I believe that point has been argued in a court of law already,” Beverly said, wearing her own affectionate smile for their friend. “Now, if you’re wanting to shop for models or toys, you might want to find the right store. Deanna and I have an appointment to make ourselves ravishing.”

“You said pampered,” Deanna protested. “I didn’t sign up for beautification.”

“We’ll do both.”

“That may be a superfluous exercise,” Data commented. “But I hope that you enjoy it. I will see you later.”

They watched him walk away at his usual pace, with his usual gait -- Deanna shook her head. “He’s learned so much.”

“It was sad that he didn’t get very far with Ensign D’Sora,” Beverly said softly. They started down the concourse, which was sparsely populated with walking people of many species.

Deanna didn’t think so -- she’d dealt with D’Sora, and the fallout of her attempt at romance with Data. Deanna considered it a near miss. She had also followed up with Data, who had explained everything including the advice he’d gotten from his friends, including Will’s encouragement to dive in and have fun. But, instead of saying anything about any of it, she smiled sadly.

“It will be difficult for an android to find a compatible mate.”

The salon was well appointed and extensive. Beverly insisted on “the works” and Deanna argued. Finally the doctor grabbed her arm and dragged her slightly away from the Ullian woman running the salon. “What’s up with you? You used to enjoy this!”

“I still do. I’m busy, though, and I’m in the middle of taking the bridge test. I’m also starting to work out more. Why should I get a full pedicure when I’m probably just going to break a nail, throwing some hologram around the holodeck?”

“It’s not -- “ Beverly stopped herself. There was a total gag order when it came to the bridge test. She’d already taken it. “What about -- “ She stared at the floor for a few seconds. “What if he decided to take you out tonight?”

Deanna frowned. “Are you doing this because you know something?”

The manic, frustrated glare said it all. “Just do your nails, please? Get a facial? Have your hair done?”

“Why are you -- “

“Deanna. Come on.”

She spent two hours watching her nails and hair being done, enduring the woman’s commentary on how thick and gorgeous her hair was. The end result was an impressive tower of braids, coiled and pinned. She was dubious, but Beverly loved it. Her friend dragged her off to another store, to look at dresses.

“I’m beginning to think you’re the one who’s taking me somewhere, you’re making all the decisions,” Deanna complained, grabbing a scant thing Beverly handed her and putting it back on the rack.

“I’m beginning to think you aren’t even trying.”

Deanna almost compared her to Mother, but caught herself, smiled in appreciation of her friend’s efforts, and turned to look at another rack -- she pulled a black dress off and held it up, turning it to and fro, and headed for the fitting room. She stepped out and stood in front of the curved mirror to see it from all sides. Just a form-fitting strapless sheath, but there were ways to dress it up a little more.

Beverly had come to survey the results. “It’s simple, but effective.”

Deanna smiled. “I have shoes that will go with it. Jewelry, too.”

“The hair is a little much, isn’t it?”

With the dress it did make her look top-heavy. “It’s sort of an inverse Picard, isn’t it?”

Beverly laughed at it. “Maybe we should go back and make her modify it.”

“I need to get going, I wanted to study for the engineering section.”

Another quickly-bitten-back response never made it out her friend’s lips. “Maybe, you should just take it. You’ll have a second chance if you need one after all.”

“I’m beginning to think of it as a very late hazing ritual.” Deanna returned to the fitting room, and continued to speak through the curtain as she oozed herself inch by inch out of the sheath. “I’m grateful that Data doesn’t laugh. I tripped while I was working through the bridge situation.”

“One of these days, I’m going to figure out how to fix that problem. You have all the grace of a dancer, until you turn into a water buffalo. There’s got to be a reason.”

“There is no fix for being too damned clumsy for my own good,” Deanna exclaimed, throwing her blue dress over her head. Since she intended to dismantle the Leaning Tower of Betazed anyway, she saw no reason to be so careful. “If I’d been on the real bridge, they’d be replacing the ops console after I put my head through it.”

“Were you hurt?”

“It was on the holodeck. The chair I would have collided with dematerialized so I didn’t crack a rib.”

“That’s handy. But you passed?”

Deanna stepped into her shoes and pushed through the curtain. “Yes.”

“Good. Do you want to get anything else?” Beverly asked, a bag dangling from her hand.

“No. What did you get?”

“Just a pair of shoes. Let’s go.”

Rather than call her on the lie, Deanna went.

They were lingering in front of a jewelry store when Deanna sensed a familiar person, and slapped her friend’s arm lightly. “Why didn’t you tell me he would be here?”

“What? Who would be here?”

Deanna was turning her head to scan the broad corridor and the storefronts, and then she saw the cadet’s uniform. Her hand shot up. “Wesley!”

The young man wasn’t surprised -- he jogged at them, and Beverly met him halfway, throwing her arms around her son. She rocked to and fro, laughing, and pulled away to kiss him on each cheek.

“I talked to you three days ago! Why didn’t you say anything? It’s so good to see you!”

“Surprise?” he said, his voice cracking a little.

Deanna caught up to Beverly and came in for a brief hug. “Cadet Crusher,” she said, giving him a proud smile.

“Hi, Counselor,” he said, giving her a once-over. That was alarming, but she kept smiling at the tall young man just the same. Young men were like that, after all. “It’s nice to see you.”

“So you said you were going to buy us lunch?” Beverly slipped her arm through Wesley’s and they started to walk together. Deanna followed them. “We have a lot to tell you -- a lot of changes since you’ve been at the Academy.”

“You told me about Worf,” Wes said, the sadness he felt clear enough. “How’s Alexander doing?”

Beverly glanced at Deanna, who came around to walk on Wesley’s left. “He’s doing well enough.”

“I guess you’re taking care of him?” Wesley asked Deanna.

“Worf asked me to, if anything ever happened to him. Everyone has been helping, too -- the captain took him sailing, he really enjoyed it.”

She’d deliberately introduced the captain to the conversation to start the process of helping Wes understand the changes, but just that little fact shocked him. He looked down at her with an open mouth.

“Oh,” he managed.

“Mike McCormick is chief of security now,” Beverly said. “And Data is the first officer.”

“Really? What happened to Commander Riker?”

They started walking again, as Beverly talked about Will’s promotion and the new vessel he would be taking into the Beta Quadrant in a month or so. She hinted that Wesley might even be assigned to serve with him. When she suggested that, Deanna sensed a surge of frustration and even a little anger, and was that resentment? He was actually angry at his mother for encouraging him when he hadn't told her he didn't want to do it. Clearly, he hadn't. Beverly wasn't the kind of parent who would force her child to do anything.

Beverly chose a Rigellian restaurant and they sat down together, and Deanna participated minimally, letting Beverly take the lead in questioning the young man about his experiences at the Academy. He kept fuming and covering it with a smile, answering minimally.

Eventually, it got around to the _Enterprise_ again, and Wesley grinned at Deanna. “You’re really taking the bridge test?”

“I am. I’m almost done. It’s not been as difficult as I supposed it would.”

“Probably because you have all that experience already. I’ve been really grateful the captain gave me the opportunities that I had -- I realized how unique that was after I left. They don’t let you do anything there, not without all kinds of supervision and protocol.”

“That must be frustrating,” Deanna said mildly.

Another surge of frustration from him answered it, but he said, “Yeah, but I get it -- it’s the Academy and they slant it to the folks who’ve never had any experience at all. So, what else is going on?”

Beverly gave her the look, the puckish, sly expression that said it needed to be said. But Deanna wavered on that opinion.

“There’s a minor refit under way -- we have to replace some of the aft nacelle,” she said calmly. “I just bought a dress.”

Wesley’s forehead wrinkled. “Must be boring right now?”

“Oh, no, it’s never boring,” Beverly intoned. “She bought the dress for a date.”

“But -- “ Now he was uncomfortable. Deanna started to wonder if Beverly had lost her mind. But the doctor put an arm on her son’s shoulder, and showed a little more care in lowering her voice and phrasing it more carefully.

“You should know, before you go aboard, because it could be awkward. She’s seeing the captain.”

He stared at his mother -- Beverly was smarter than she’d initially assumed. This kind of reaction would have sent Jean-Luc retreating after snapping at the young man. “What?”

Deanna sipped her glass of Tarkalian tea, and poked at a canape with her fork. “You sound surprised.”

“But -- I guess I just thought -- he always seemed so -- and you were -- but -- “

“It’s a good thing we told you now. I suspect he’d scowl at you, for being unable to string together a sentence.” Beverly patted Wes’s back. “Come on, Mr. Crusher, take a deep breath.”

“But, Mom -- “ Wes stared at his mother for a moment.

Deanna decided a change of subject was in order. “Wes, I was hoping to ask you a favor -- would you mind spending some time with Alexander, while you’re here? Do you intend to stay with us for a while?”

“I’ve got four days, and then I have to be on a shuttle,” he said, with a moment of disgruntlement as he said it. “Sure, I’d like that. He’s a cute kid.”

“He’s about a foot taller than he was when you left. Klingons mature faster, physically at least,” Beverly said. “I think he’s growing about an inch every month?”

“He’s really struggling with his father’s death,” Deanna said faintly. “I’ve been helping him with managing symptoms, anxiety and depression, but he’s not been talking about it. Not that I expect him to, just yet. I thought he might be able to talk to you more easily.”

“I bet. How did it happen -- Worf’s death, I mean?”

Beverly looked very sad, and Deanna knew the doctor had been impacted by it differently due to her attempt to save the Klingon. She didn’t like losing anyone to death. “He was shot repeatedly, protecting the captain. It was difficult for all of us.”

Wesley stared at his half-eaten meal, and picked up his fork listlessly. “When I got your message I… cried. I couldn’t believe it. He was -- ”

“I’ll be right back,” Beverly said, rising and hurrying for the back of the restaurant. She had to go, and she’d been postponing it too long.

Deanna watched Wesley pick at his food. “You should talk to the captain.”

“I’m okay, about Worf,” he replied, with a little shrug.

“You should talk to him about not wanting to be in Starfleet. And then you should tell your mother.”

He put down the fork and covered his face with both hands. One downward scrub of the palms, and he had a frustrated grin. “Yeah, you’re the same as always.”

That angered her somewhat, but she gazed calmly across the table at him.

“What?”

“You’re on the wrong road, Wesley,” she said softly. “And I don’t mean Starfleet. You’re angry and you aren’t being rational -- blaming others for your choices is always the wrong path. Talk to the captain. He’ll understand.”

“I take it back, you’re different. Used to listen before you made guesses.”

“I think your mother doesn’t deserve the attitude, and neither do I,” Deanna said, taking a bite and reaching for her glass. “Things have changed a lot more than they should have.”

“What attitude?”

“If you’re going to do that, I think we’re done talking about it.” Deanna got up, as Beverly came back to the table. “I need to get back -- I have appointments this afternoon. See you later?”

“Do you think Alexander would be too disappointed if we changed plans?” Beverly said. She’d agreed to join them on a holodeck, to watch him show off his skydiving skills.

“I think he’ll be all right with it if I tell him why. We’ll postpone it. See you later.”

She headed out without another look at Wesley, leaving them to talk without her, and strolled toward the transporters with her bag. Several people paid a little too much attention, but she didn’t even try to identify them; she left the starbase and immediately felt better, materializing on the ship, smiling at the transporter chief and heading for her quarters to change.

“Picard to Troi.”

She affixed her comm badge and sat in front of her mirror to survey the situation. It was an inverse Picard, all right, nearly a foot tall and leaning a little. “Troi here.”

“Report to the ready room.”

No ‘please,’ no reason -- someone was in the room with him. “I’m on my way, sir.”

On the bridge, as she passed them, Natchez gave her a look, and McCormick was staring at his console a little too hard. A reaction to the captain, she guessed. The captain was stressed, but she didn’t falter, walking into the ready room without hesitation. She came to attention behind the empty chair and then it registered that the person in the other chair was another starship captain.

“Have a seat, Counselor,” her captain said.

She did so, and finally glanced at the other officer’s face. Elisabeth Shelby smiled, the firm, slight smile of a professional. “Counselor.”

“Captain,” she replied, just as cordially.

“The captain has been asked to speak to me about the developing situation between the Cardassians and the Federation,” Jean-Luc said. “I believe you would be able to help, with a particular situation that we are facing. We’ve lost contact with an operative.”

“Does this have something to do with the rebel group that formed when the Federation negotiated the Demilitarized Zone?” Deanna asked.

“Already a step ahead,” Shelby said. “I was sent six months ago to insert an officer who was to gather intelligence, on the plans and the members of the Maquis. We staged a disagreement with her, an attempt to arrest her, on Deep Space Nine, and subsequently she found herself drawn into a cell, as so many malcontents have been. There have been three contacts to gather information she had collected, but she missed the fourth contact last month.”

“So you want to send another officer in to establish contact. What makes me the candidate of choice?”

Shelby wasn’t happy but she explained. “Admiral Ross has concerns. There have been breaches of security, anyone who’s been involved in policing the border or had recent travels through the area would be suspect -- many officers have left Starfleet to join the Maquis. Admiral Nechayev and Ross discussed the matter and the fleet admiral felt that someone the officer in question already knew would be the best choice -- she could identify you easily, without needing any countersign or identification process, and know that it would be safe to approach you.”

“Your previous experience led me to suggest you,” Jean-Luc said. “I’m afraid it’s also your empathy, that might turn things -- the admiral thinks that Ro may have defected into the Maquis, may have been giving them more information than has been passed to us. She wants you to talk to Ro, re-establish a protocol to continue the communication of information if she is still working for us, and to apprehend her if she is not.”

That explained his stiffness, his anger -- he didn’t like to think his protege may be a turncoat. He had recommended Ro Llaren for additional tactical training. And, he didn’t like sending Deanna on what sounded like an extremely dangerous mission. But he’d chosen her for it, which meant he didn’t have much choice.

“When am I supposed to leave? I have to find someone to care for Alexander,” she said calmly.

“My vessel is here for a refit,” Shelby said. “We’ll be done in a week. I’m to take you as far as Deep Space Nine and then you’ll be making your way to Mendhel Two. You’ll need a cover identity.”

The captain passed her a padd. She glanced at it and curled her lip at the brief paragraph. “I suppose that would be another reason to choose me,” she said, letting a little frustration show.

It surprised both captains -- Shelby didn’t really know her, other than the brief time she served aboard the _Enterprise_ while they were battling the Borg, and had probably never seen her angry. Jean-Luc was simply confused.

“It would be difficult for Geordi or Data to manage the pretense of being a prostitute, on a world with a two-to-one ratio of men to women. And Beverly would just disable all the potential clients -- you know how she is.”

“Dr. Crusher doesn’t have the experience in undercover work.”

“Or the empathy,” Shelby put in, glancing at Jean-Luc.

“It’s not that I won’t go. The frustration will help, actually. There’s plenty of demand for dominant, angry hookers with whips.”

That sent him leaning back, raising his eyebrows, as if he’d just heard something completely unbelievable. Shelby blinked and studied her anew. “Wow.”

“I’m going to need Mike, though. It would help keep the clients in line if I had an equally-angry pimp.”

“I had no idea this was so apt a choice as it appears to be,” Jean-Luc exclaimed, with the begrudgingly-amused little smile he had when someone surprised him in a briefing.

“We have an officer whose family is on a mining colony just outside Federation borders. This was one of the choices -- she was deciding between machinist, waitress, prostitute with a waitress job on the side, Starfleet, or being a slave with the Orion syndicate. She moved to Deneva and joined Starfleet the minute she attained citizenship.”

A concerned little collection of wrinkles over his nose joined the faint smile. “There are facets of your job that I have failed to fully appreciate.”

“Whatever works,” Shelby exclaimed. “If there’s anything else you need from me, you know where to find me.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Jean-Luc said automatically. He watched Shelby leave the room, and then his shoulders sagged a little. “Tea?”

“No, thank you. I have something you want to know. Wesley’s here. I left him talking to Beverly in a restaurant.”

That brought an immediate smile. “That’s right, this is the spring break for the Academy. How is he?”

“What do you think Jack would say, if he knew his son didn’t want to be in Starfleet?”

The smile was gone almost immediately. “What? But he worked so hard, he -- You’re sure about this?”

“He’s so frustrated, but he won’t talk to me about it.” She shut her mouth abruptly. The rest was going to be obvious to him, or not.

“And?” Jean-Luc prompted. Obviously he could tell she had stopped herself.

“He’s a young man. Not unlike the one you were, I think,” she said.

That shouldn’t have been enough for him to draw real conclusions, but he frowned and went there. “You’re angrier than you are disappointed. Was he leering at you?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m going to my office now. I’d tell you to play father figure, or at least a mentor, but clearly I’m no good in this situation with advice or suggestions -- if he doesn’t talk to his mother about it I’m going to find Will and kick his worthless ass, because if there’s anyone Wes reminds me of right now, it’s him. He spent a lot of time with Wesley.”

But she felt too wound up to sit in her office, so since she had an hour and a half before her next appointment she found an empty holodeck and threw rocks at windows for a while. When that wasn’t enough, she switched to her version of Worf’s program and swung weapons at holograms for a while.

The alarm she’d set to give her half an hour to clean up went off, so she canceled the program, turned, ran into someone and leaped backward several feet.

“You didn’t sense me, did you?” Jean-Luc said, sounding repentant.

“No, I get too agitated when I’m fighting to sense anything. Is something wrong?”

“I wanted to talk to you.” He paused, and seemed to be questioning himself. “I'm not sure if I said the right thing."

“Beverly brought him to you?” She came closer, making herself, sweaty as she was, available for whatever he needed.

“I saw what you saw, and I called him out on it. In front of Beverly. I tried to be more fatherly, not the captain. I tried to be what I would have wanted, at that age. I questioned it, instead of being harsh.” The quiet tone said what the outcome was.

“He’s not going to hear anything he doesn’t want to hear,” she murmured. "I doubt there is anything you could have said that might make a difference -- Beverly told him about us, and then I tried to tell him to talk to you. I think it upset him. Jean-Luc, it might very well have been that he wanted you to be with his mother. Perhaps even an unconscious wish, or he might have noticed her feelings, at one point.... Children can be very perceptive. He was angry already and I upset him more. I'm sorry."

“I know, it's not really what I said. I was hard-headed myself at the same age.” He sighed, crossed his arms, chewed on his lower lip. “I’ll try again tomorrow. He’s staying in guest quarters.”

Deanna smiled fondly at this determination to be there for Beverly, if not for Wesley. “I should go get cleaned up.”

“You had your hair done and then you ruined it,” he commented, reaching up to pull at a long curl. The leaning tower really leaned, now.

“I was going to rearrange it anyway. It doesn’t really go with the dress I got -- I should have bought the dress first, then had the hair done.”

“Or you could wear a different dress. It’s not without an appeal.”

She wondered what was so appealing to him about it. “You like the inverse Picard?”

He laughed, briefly, and took a step in for a kiss. Not a long one, but it was quite nice -- affectionate and mutually satisfying.

As they went toward the large doors, he said, “You surprised Shelby. She obviously hadn’t spoken to you much, when she was here last.”

“I surprised you. Are you sure you want me to go? There are surely others with more experience in undercover work.”

He hesitated, turning to look at her, and surprised her with a grim smile. “Are you questioning my judgment, or asking a rhetorical question?”

“I’ve been known to do both, haven’t I?” She gripped his hand.

“Do I get to see the costumes you choose, before you leave?” he asked with a mischievous head tilt.

“I can arrange it. It sounds like I have a little time, before I depart.”

By the time they went through the door, he walked ahead of her, and he went with her as far as her door. “See you later?” she asked. "I'm guessing you are picking me up here instead of meeting you on the station."

"She told you," he growled.

"She was up against my not wanting to go in the first place. And she knows I know when she's lying. Sorry."

“Seventeen hundred, right here,” he said. “With the dress on. And the inverse Picard.”

“As you wish,” she said, turning to head in for a quick shower. She had a follow up appointment with Giles in just a few minutes.


	17. The Pain and the Pleasure

Alexander practically skipped with her all the way home. “Won’t you be lonely without me?”

“Well, no. I can talk to the captain. Wes will only be here for a couple of days, you won’t see him again for a while.” If he didn’t drop out of the Academy. Beverly might get him to stay on for a while, if he did, but Deanna knew that unless he intended to be one of Guinan’s assistants, there wouldn’t be any job for him aboard. “You should take him skydiving. Teach him how. Or you can ask the computer to provide an instructor and you can go through a lesson with him.” The holodeck would be safe enough.

“I should take some games,” he exclaimed. “Can I show him my boat?”

His latest boat, the second one he and the captain had finished together, was his pride and joy. Deanna had to suggest that he carry it under an arm, instead of inside the bag he packed.

She walked him to Beverly’s door. Wes answered -- his eyes went immediately to Alexander, and his smile was genuine. “Hey, wow, where’d you get the boat?”

“I made it, with the captain,” Alexander exclaimed, holding it up.

Wes’ enthusiasm waned a little, surprise edging it out. “C’mon in.”

Deanna smoothed back Alexander’s wild Klingon hair and kissed his forehead. “If you get scared, remember what to do?”

“Yes,” he exclaimed, bouncing a little. “Say hi to the captain for me.”

She smiled at him, ignoring Wesley’s surprise. “Have fun, little tiger. See you later, Wes.”

She walked sedately to her door, then hurried to her bedroom to change. There was a bag on the end of the bed that looked familiar -- it contained lacy underwear, a strapless bra and a thong. Beverly’s “shoes” from their shopping trip, that the doctor hadn’t wanted to show her. They were the right size, so she wore them, and put on a different dress -- a strapless green one, with a fuller skirt and an uneven hem. At least she didn’t look top-heavy with the tall hair, now. She spent a few minutes pulling down curls to hang loose around her face, put on lipstick, added a little green eye shadow to the gray and stepped into her sandals. Hopefully the two-inch heels weren’t too high, if she channeled her spirit animal and turned water buffalo.

The annunciator startled her, but she knew it was still a little early, so she let Beverly in. “You and your shoes,” she exclaimed, putting her hands on her hips.

“Did they fit?”

“Yes. Thank you, Beverly.” Deanna smiled at her, and got a happy one in return.

“That’s not the dress, but it’s a nice one, suits the hair better. I thought you were changing the hair.”

“I had to go for a briefing with it and he liked it, so I kept it. You’re supposed to be supervising,” she said, the worry edging in despite her determination not to let it.

“Wesley is fine with him. He knows better than to tell Alexander adult information.”

“I’m a bit more worried about the other direction -- Alexander has a childish, distorted view of how things are.” Deanna looked down at herself. “Maybe I should change.”

“It’s a rare thing, to see you nervous,” Beverly said, managing not to sound amused. She crossed her arms and gazed at Deanna with a little wistfulness.

“Beverly,” Deanna prompted in a low, serious tone.

“On the one hand, you’re lucky, I think it’s great that you’re happy, and it’s nice to see him being happy, as he’s been. On the other -- I hope you know what you’re doing. I know you were his therapist, and you know him well enough. But he’s such a stubborn idiot, sometimes.”

Deanna merely smiled, and thought about things Beverly didn’t know. “So am I.”

“One thing in common, at least.”

“We share a lot of things,” Deanna said, grinning. She knew Beverly would consider it innuendo, though she meant something different.

“God!” Beverly spun and headed out again. “You’re horrible. Have a great time, tonight, see you at whatever late hour you show up in the morning to collect your little tiger.”

Deanna stood for about ten minutes alone, in the living room. Resisted the urge to recheck her face. Closed her eyes, and enjoyed the moment. Did not think about how many weeks the mission could run, or the message sitting unplayed in her inbox, from Will. Or the other message from her mother. She did think a little about being away from the ship, from her little boy and her friends, and the man who kept elbowing her in the ribs at random intervals in his sleep.

He came in, bringing a wave of impatience with him. When he saw her he stopped, and the ire started to dwindle rapidly. “You had to know I was out here, right where I said.”

“I’m sorry, I was just -- not sensing anything,” she said, smiling, appreciating that he wore a nice suit, and was easy on the eye, as Beverly would say.

He smiled, calm now, and as she approached he fell in step with her. She almost took his arm, as she’d done on Lavonia, but it was his ship, and he was Captain Picard even if he was in civilian clothes. In the lift, however, he reached up to tug on a long curl dangling along her ear.

“Very nice,” he murmured.

“I think so,” she said, letting her eyes wander.

She waited until they were on the starbase, past the startled eyes of the transporter attendant on beta shift, to say anything more. But she kept her voice low, as she knew roughly a third of the crew were out and about on leave.

“So how much did you tell Beverly to do, actually, and how much did she improvise?”

“All I wanted was for her to take you shopping and have fun. I may have mentioned that she might encourage you to get something suitable for a night out. What did she do?”

Deanna giggled a little. “Jean-Luc, you and I have a devious friend. If we aren’t careful she’ll be planning our wedding.”

“Perhaps I shouldn’t ask. We’re going over there,” he said, pointing.

‘Over there’ turned out to be a restaurant, of course. One dim, quiet, and elegant restaurant, with booths instead of tables with chairs, and candles and tablecloths. The waiter left a padd on the table. Jean-Luc snatched it before she could even reach.

“It’s a different sort of restaurant, isn’t it?”

He looked up from the padd. “It is. They have a diverse menu -- here.” He passed it across to her.

The list scrolled on and on, and while she scanned, he ordered spring wine, and then a Greek dish. She decided that sounded like a good choice, if he thought it would go well with Bajoran spring wine, and chose something else off the short list of Greek choices.

“How are you? Any more symptoms?”

Deanna shook her head. “I think I may be in the clear. Thanks to all your help.” She heard a soft laugh, somewhere off to the right, but it stopped almost at once. This was one of the quietest places she’d ever been. She suspected dampening fields.

“Good, then you can relax and enjoy the evening with me,” he said happily.

“Alexander said to tell you hi -- he’s quite happy to spend time with Beverly and Wes. I told him to take them skydiving.”

“I hope he does.” Jean-Luc hesitated, looking at her in the candlelight, and his mood shifted. “You’re beautiful,” he said, in a tone that she hadn’t heard him use before. Wistful, serious, and somewhat in awe.

She looked down, unable to look at him suddenly. “Thank you.”

Another long moment passed. When she finally raised her head, she saw that he watched her solemnly.

“How are your brother and sister-in-law?”

“Marie’s last message indicated everyone was well. Rene is growing like a weed, apparently.” He blinked, then, startling himself with some thought he had.

“Jean-Luc?”

“I should take you home,” he said. The grin was unexpected. “Robert would love you.”

“I’d like that, I think. But there’s no time.”

“After you get back. I’d invite them to come to us, but I seriously doubt Robert would ever do that.”

Deanna smiled. “You should invite them anyway. He might do it if Marie wanted to come.”

“Yes,” he said, with a smirk. “We are at the mercy of our lady love, he and I.”

“An interesting statement,” she said automatically, and quickly moved away from sounding any more like the counselor by going on. “I hadn’t realized I was in a position to give mercy.”

Now it was his turn to look away, down, hide his eyes in that way that people did when they were feeling emotionally vulnerable. “More than you realize, I think.”

“Jean-Luc,” she said, then lost the words. She thought about what little she knew, about how he conducted affairs with women -- unlike some it had always been women -- and sighed. “Would you like to talk about this? Should I take the comment as an indication that you do?”

“Want to, no. It’s -- “ He glanced at her again, then they were interrupted by the waiter, returning with a bottle and two glasses, and a small plate of appetizers. He watched the things set out before them and the wine poured, thanked the young man quietly, and watched him leave. Then turned back to her, meeting her gaze.

“You came to me in the ready room because you guessed that would be a place in which I would feel more confident, in handling a touchy subject. I could have approached you in your office for this but you don’t seem to have breaks between appointments when you are in. I think it may be something we do need to discuss, however, and I’m not sure this is a good time.”

“Is it going to end with a decision for a transfer?” she asked.

It hit him hard. “No,” he said quietly. “It doesn’t have to. Today was my wake-up moment, when I was talking to Shelby and realized that you were the one person who stood the best chance of success, in this assignment I’ve been handed. The one person who could sense intent and interpret that data, and react in the best interests of the Federation. It’s a different decision to the one I made with Sito -- it’s different to the one I made with Ro. Neither of them were entirely known quantities to me, not in the same manner you are. I felt more confident about Ro -- until today. Now I question whether she was ready. You, on the other hand, are a proven officer in my eyes.”

“But, this.” Deanna regarded him soberly.

“Yes. This. I feel -- “ He shook his head, as the turmoil continued -- he folded his hands and put his forearms on the table, as if they were in a briefing, and she thought she understood.

“Do you want me to tell you that I am willing to go, that I want to go, that I don’t want to but it’s obvious that I have to -- what do you need from me to make this all right?” She brought up her hand and put it over his, leaning across to do so.

He stared at the back of her hand, then took it in both of his. “You aren’t giving me the option to not send you at all?”

“You already told the captain that I would. I’m not going to ask you to change your mind, your orders are as they are and there’s no flaw in your reasoning as to who should go. The only other empath you have at your disposal is Dan Kwan, an altogether inappropriate choice based on his lack of experience. You can’t -- Jean-Luc?”

“This is why -- “ He turned his head as if looking off somewhere for answers. Or at least for the words to give them.

“This is why you decided you would never have this kind of relationship with an officer in your command, after Nella left. But I’m sure that if you had someone as stubborn as you, instead of someone who ‘accepted the reality of the situation’ and gave up, that you would have succeeded then. The fact is, reality in this sort of situation is whatever you decide it to be -- you can work through whatever is difficult, with the correct attitude. If I accepted defeat in the face of charged, difficult, overwhelming emotional issues, I would have to give up my profession. Some of the problems people bring into my office are on the surface impossible to reconcile. My job is to help them make impossible choices, to navigate their feelings and beliefs and help them to reconcile those with each other, until they make that decision that is wholly theirs to make -- not interpret things in a way that makes them feel that any single choice is inevitable. You made a choice as a captain that makes complete rational sense in that context. You can’t reconcile it with how you feel about me, but you did it anyway. I feel the same, for you, but I also follow orders, especially from my captain, who I will always trust to make a decision that is principled, rational and appropriate to the situation. So I will go and I will come back, and we’ll be fine.”

As she spoke, he settled back, raised his hands, covered his eyes with his palms -- he started to laugh quietly, as she waited for him to respond. “This is why you have not been anxious about any of it. Not the sex, not the impact on our professional relationship, not the impact on our friendship if it doesn’t….”

“This, and the fact that I know you respect my opinions,” she said, losing the matter-of-fact tone of a psychologist presenting and edging into affection. “You’ll listen to me, instead of planning the next angle of attack while I’m speaking, as certain others do. You’ll talk to me like I have informed opinions. You’ll let me make decisions, in the end, that are mine to make, instead of attempting to push me to make decisions you want me to make. And you’ll let me be an officer if it’s what I want to do. You’re never going to act as though this relationship is all there is for me, and my primary concern in life. Even if I tell you that I would walk away from Starfleet for you, if that was necessary -- if it truly became too difficult to navigate the fuzzy boundary between the officer and the lover.”

He gaped at her. He kept gaping, on the verge of saying but unable to, and she pulled away to pick up her wine glass, and sip. She plucked a small item from the appetizer plate with her fingers, the lacquered golden nails shimmering in the candlelight, and tossed it in her mouth. She liked them, she decided, and took another.

“Deanna,” he began. The incredible knot of desire, love, appreciation and joy, admiration and anxiety, was settling down. She waited, nibbling and sipping, for him to finish processing it. Calming the butterflies in her own stomach.

“You should try the wine,” she said softly.

“Deanna,” he repeated, more wistfully than before.

“Yes?”

He picked up the wine glass, sniffed, and sipped. “It’s not -- I would never expect you to -- “

“My. Choice.” Putting down the wine glass, she stared at him as if daring him to disagree.

“Deanna -- “

“Where are you going, when you move on from the _Enterprise_? Another ship? A promotion? Leaving Starfleet altogether?”

“I don’t know.” He sounded uncertain.

“I love you, and there will be a point that it will be -- “ She thought about it, trying to decide whether this was a good time, and how his thought process might go if she gave it all to him. And it occurred to her that he would want to know everything, at this point, because he would be quite angry if she hadn’t told him, and then tied herself to him that way. “There will be a point after which leaving would mean significant consequences, for me. My decision to leave or stay has to take that into account.”

“I’m getting the feeling that I should put you in charge of this relationship,” he said, and she knew he was joking -- but there was emotional truth, in it. She stared at him with an intensity that got his attention.

“No,” she said firmly.

It settled him, made him think instead of feel anxious, and he nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“It’s too much, right now,” she said, smiling regretfully. “We should enjoy the evening.”

“Tell me why,” he said. “Tell me please, what you mean.”

“When I say consequences I mean that my unique situation, my empathy, my mental abilities, will respond to my attachment to someone in a way that I have experienced only once before. I know that when I commit myself completely that extricating myself will be -- traumatic.”

“As it was, when you failed a semester of college,” he said with faint disapproval in his tone -- nothing, compared to the undercurrent of anger he didn’t express.

“I didn’t know, and he didn’t know, that it would happen. He still doesn’t know. I have never told him what I am about to tell you. The only reason I am telling you is that I know that you want to know these things, I know that you would be furious if I allow myself to get to the point and then -- I know you, Jean-Luc. I’m not doing this because I want to. I’m not wanting to manipulate you or change your mind, about anything. I want -- “

She paused to dab at her eyes with a napkin, calmly. He was, for his part, settling into a calm and focused state that she recognized. He’d done it before in very serious situations. It was so nice, to be taken this seriously, that she wondered if she would ever be able to stop feeling so much for him even if things ended before the inevitable.

“I only want you to understand,” she said quietly. “I’ve never told anyone any of this. I’m giving you the impression that I am not anxious about our relationship. In reality I gave you complete control of certain things, before giving you the information, because it’s all I could do. To have a committed, intimate relationship with someone I have to sacrifice some safety -- that’s true of anyone, yes, but as with most things, it’s different for me.”

He sipped and waited. Some of it upset him, a little, but he waited.

“I have no real language for this, especially not in Standard. It’s nothing you can read about or study. I’ve never heard of it happening to any other empath. And I’ve looked. But it takes place in stages. There will be a point that it is possible to push emotional feedback to you, share it with you. It already started, and it will get stronger. And after a while, I will start to have a synchronicity of thought -- it becomes possible to share information, to communicate with each other. And when he left me -- when he sent me the message -- I understood why he did that, because he couldn’t bear it, what would happen if he faced me in person, the heartbreak is shared, the pain would be shared, and he ran from it instead of sharing it with me.”

He was nodding -- he was thinking about it. “Then when I said it was different -- “

“It was only a little of it.”

“He ran. What a coward.” From a man who had not run from extreme pain, it was fact.

“It was who he was, at the time. Young, probably afraid. And ultimately, nothing I can change, and so far in the past that he doesn't matter.”

He drank wine, wrapped up in his thoughts, his expression the same as when mentally picking apart a thorny diplomatic situation. She waited for him to get through it.

“And the part that makes it devastating?” he asked finally.

“Part of the reason I couldn’t tolerate sensing pain, for a while, after we came aboard -- I was having flashbacks, any pain was the trigger, to the trauma of losing that bond. Whatever it is -- I am tied to the person I commit that completely to, in a way that causes excruciating pain, when it’s broken. I spent several weeks in a hospital bed confusing doctors. They could tell that I was in pain. They couldn’t tell me why, other than odd activity in the brain that looked like what happens when someone is in immense pain. For me to start along this path I am essentially committing myself to a high risk of repeating the experience.”

She gathered her courage, collected her resolve, and while he was lost in sadness thinking about it, she went on.

“What I experienced with you, after the Borg, was not as painful,” she said quietly.

And now he stared at her in horror. She wondered if they might be leaving before dinner arrived. Then it arrived, and she involved herself in eating, slowly, adopting normalcy while feeling his anxiety and fear and all the other responses he had while trying to adapt to that information without shouting, as he’d initially felt like doing.

“You can’t know what it’s like until you’re there, really,” she said, finally. “I regret that.”

“Stop,” he blurted. He picked up his fork and joined her in eating.

So she let him have silence, as they finished dinner and drank wine. She refused dessert, and got up to go, after he paid the waiter. Jean-Luc put his hand in the small of her back and walked close, almost too close, as they left the restaurant and strolled down a quieter corridor toward the transporter room.

She wondered, as they approached her door on deck seven, if she would be spending the night alone -- but he slid his arm around her waist firmly and kept going, to his door, into his quarters, the lights coming up automatically as they went in.

“Thank you,” he said at last. “For telling me. I can appreciate how difficult it was, and all the reasons you -- are you sure? That you want -- me.”

Of course, he would be at that point. He didn’t want to cause her pain. He didn’t even want to start on that path, if he didn’t have the certainty. And she loved him for that, just as she had loved him for so many other things. He was speaking from a wholly emotional place, from his heart, because if he had any of his rational self involved he would know already that nothing about a relationship was set into stone.

“I wouldn’t have let you stay in my room at the resort if I had not been as certain as I could be, at this time,” she said quietly. “I’m only leaving if you tell me to.”

“It’s already too late, isn’t it?” He pivoted, stepping around to face her, and put a hand to her face, to keep her there looking back at him. “If I decided to end it now. It would -- “

Her eyes felt as though they were burning, with trying not to cry. “You will make the decision you need to make. I cannot allow anyone to enslave themselves to making me feel better.” The last two words dripped with contempt -- she wanted to make the point that it had to be a choice he made for himself.

“I suppose I don't need to remind you what my life is like. And I’ve watched you survive what it’s been so far, vicariously.” He brought up his other hand, held her face gently, and kissed her.

Though his arms went around her and held her, though she reciprocated, the way he felt would, she knew, prevent moving on into sexual behavior immediately. This was his reassurance for himself as well as her that things were not so different, he still loved her and still wanted her there, still needed physical reassurances that they were moving together on this path.

She knew he was tired -- emotional fatigue. She was the first to move into the bedroom, with him following. She got ready for bed, didn’t shy away from anything -- took off all her clothes and took a sonic shower, returned to find him out of the suit and sitting on the edge of the bed.

“There are probably ten thousand pins in this,” she said, sitting next to him and pulling one out of a lower tier of her hair. He reached up and pulled another, and another, and between them they soon had a large pile of hair pins on his night stand, and yet more were still to be found. He lost patience and pushed his fingers into the loosened lower half of it, and pins rained around her as he worked through and up to free her braided hair. Then he was running his fingers through and loosening braids, and kissing her again, intense and almost determined, then becoming less deliberate and more impassioned.

This time, she let herself flow into the experience, let the passion sweep her in and toss her among the waves, without coming up for air. She let her body wrap itself around him and take what it needed. She let his emotions carry her into orgasm, three times over. It didn't take long, when she was this open and he was flooding her with his own intense pleasure.

There was a moment when he hovered over her, holding most of his weight on his elbows, panting, sweating -- he had just climaxed and she lay there with her hand on his shoulder, gazing into his eyes, and he felt such a wrench of shocked dismay -- it was enough to bring her back to herself, but she didn’t have to guess; she knew what it was. He was upset that he hadn’t had the stamina to draw out this experience, to pleasure her with an erection for a more extended period of time.

“Kiss me,” she murmured. And she knew from his smile that this too was not on a more gradual schedule, as it had been the last time -- he picked up on the unspoken, and bent his head to taste her mouth, graze down her throat, slide along toward her breast, on his way to keep her happily stimulated.

Later, she woke to find she’d dozed for just an hour or so, and still felt blissfully limp and sated. Without moving she took inventory and determined that the only ones awake at the moment within a deck or so were herself and Jean-Luc. He was only barely awake, lying at her back contentedly enjoying a memory of her voice crying out in ecstasy.

It’s too late, she thought. Too much, too fast. That she could pick up a thought from him so easily said it was far, far beyond what it had been before.  But perhaps this was a reflection of her long meditation on what she truly wanted, what she truly needed, and also of how much she trusted him in ways she hadn’t predicted being able to trust anyone. Perhaps her abilities had matured along with her as they should for any Betazoid. Or perhaps she had told him everything, and he had stayed -- he wasn't afraid of it. He trusted her. He knew everything and he still wanted her.

So, not too late. Right on time.

Now he was thinking about that, too, and she rolled on her back and then all the way over on her right side, to look at him there in the starlight. He was flat on his back, smiling a little, smug as hell now.

“When did you stop snoring?” she asked.

“I had Beverly take a look -- she corrected the problem.”

“I see,” she said, grinning. “Did she perhaps give you also something that might lend itself to increasing the effectiveness of your tool, to prolong your expeditions?”

He guffawed and stretched a little. “I didn’t even think of that.“ His head rolled her direction. “I suppose there’s going to be other opportunities.”

Deanna let her hand drift over to his hip. “Make it so.”

“Demanding, in all the right ways,” he said with a chuckle.

“Are you certain that you want me?” She heard the faint note of insecurity, in her own voice. But she felt that it needed to be asked, since it was obvious that this was progressing more rapidly than it had last time.

“Yes,” he said firmly. He twisted, reaching, pulling her over and partially onto his chest, to hold her in his arms. “Yes.”

“Challenge accepted.”

He was happy enough, and she put her cheek to his chest and echoed it back to him, letting herself fall asleep with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reconciling canon is not for the faint of heart. I actually reviewed conversations between her and Riker, in transcripts for episodes in which she is about to be or actually in relationships with others, and the extrapolation is not from those but not inconsistent. The idea that they have what amounts to an open relationship where they can see other people, yet he struggles when she actually does so, is the construct that best fits canon -- but it is also possible that she is simply different, culturally, and he is just wishy-washy and selfish. And perhaps there is what is described here, in a residual amount, that skews his perceptions of things, and the process of her moving on and forming a new bond will let him go for good.
> 
> In any case, Jean-Luc wins, by being Jean-Luc. And now, I am happily looking forward to writing Riker back into the story, just to see how JLP reacts to him, knowing the things he knows. Almost with evil, cackling, hand-rubbing glee.


	18. The Bridge Test

Deanna woke up face down in the pillow and alone. It wasn’t a surprise -- he seemed to have some internal alarm permanently set to ‘godawful early.’ She sprawled out a little more, turned to the other cheek, and settled in for a nap.

But the door opened, and she peeked through her lashes and found him standing over her with a cup of coffee. So she smiled, and rolled over, sat up, held out a hand to take the cup. 

“Good morning, lovely man,” she said before tipping coffee into her mouth. 

“I’d love to keep you in bed all day, but.”

“I know. No sleeping in.” She took a drink and slid off the bed to her feet, stopping short of rubbing her naked body against his uniform. 

“I’m supposed to talk to an admiral, this morning. And apparently, Will is filling my inbox with messages.”

“I have some from him, too. I suppose I should find out what he wants now. I have the usual appointments, and then I have research to do. I need to spend some time deciding how to approach being a space hooker.”

He was amused by it, but not enough to laugh, just looked at her with a quizzical scowl. “Will we be able to have lunch, or are we doomed to miss each other until dinner?”

Deanna rose on her toes and kissed him without touching the rest of his body, until he moved away. “I’ll see you at lunch, wherever you are.”

“Probably the ready room.” Now he was trying not to look at her, fighting temptation. He moved out of the bedroom and was gone. 

That led to her own process of getting out the door. She showered, pulled on a robe, collected last night’s discarded clothing, and scurried down the corridor without being seen. In her quarters she quickly put Counselor Troi together, and then was off to Beverly’s. 

“Mom,” Alexander shouted. Beverly’s exasperation told her the boy had been difficult to get to the breakfast table, and she’d just distracted him -- she caught him and hugged, then guided him back to the table with Beverly and Wes. 

“Have you had breakfast?” Beverly wasn’t quite smirking. She wouldn’t say a word with Wes in the room, so Deanna sat down with them, reaching for a muffin.

“Did you have fun last night?”

“We went skydiving,” Alexander announced. “I missed you! I wish you came with us.”

“Maybe we can talk the captain into going with us next week.” She put a pear in front of him. He picked it up and returned it to the bowl of fruit. She stared at him, unblinking, until he reached over and took it back. 

“I didn’t expect to like falling out of a shuttle,” Beverly said. “But I had a lot of fun. Alexander was a good teacher.”

“I never figured you would enjoy something like that,” Wesley said. He sounded almost back to normal, smiling at her. 

“I’ve been doing it since I was eight, when my uncle started to take me up in his shuttles. I went tandem until I learned how, and I would ride up to the orbital stations with him, and he’d drop me on the way down. I could target our lawn easily -- it was only a few miles, between the shuttleport in town and the house. Holodecks make it almost too easy. You don’t have to repack the chute.”

She ate a pear, and gave Alexander another stare -- he picked up his glass and drank his juice. Wes noticed, and grinned. “Mom used to get on me for stuff too.”

“She just wants me to eat more,” Alexander said. 

“Alexander and I were talking about going back to the holodeck again tonight -- he said he’s never seen snow.”

Deanna smiled at Wes. He sounded much more himself now, and it was good to hear. “That would be wonderful, if you could take him. I don’t care for snow, myself. It’s not something that happened a lot on Betazed.”

“You don’t want to come with us?” Alexander asked, almost pouting. 

“If you want to see snow, you can go with Wesley. I’ll be home, eating dinner and returning some messages. I wouldn’t say no to playing chess. But I don’t make you swim a lot, so you don’t get to make me play in snow. Okay?”

“Oooh-kaaayyyyy,” he droned, stabbing a pancake with his fork.

“We’ll go skiing,” Wes said. “Or sledding. That’s a lot of fun, too.”

She finished eating and listened to Wes list off all the things they could do in the snow, and then prompted Alexander to get ready to go -- there was no school, this was the off day, but he had babysitters for the hours she worked. 

“Stop by my office, when you have a minute,” Beverly said as they headed out the door. 

To Deanna’s surprise, Wes walked with them, and Alexander kept up a running conversation about things they would do on the holodeck. He wanted to do so much, try so much, and Wes seemed to be feeding him more ideas as they went along. Her little boy said a reluctant good-bye at his babysitter’s door, and she turned for the lift, Wes turning with her.

“I’m sorry, about yesterday,” he said as they re-entered the lift. “I have an appointment with the captain today. It’s just been really, really hard, since the problem with Nova Squadron.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Your mother hasn’t said anything, so I’m assuming you didn’t want to worry her.” She took a moment to remember all the things she’d never told her own mother, for a particular four year period. “And you feel obligated, don’t you, to be everything everyone expects you to be?”

Wes looked like he was on the verge of tears, his face contorted and his anger edging out the angst. Deanna reached out to touch his shoulder, get his attention.

“Wes, the captain would want you to be true to yourself. Not pretend. I can’t say he won’t be disappointed that you don’t want to be Starfleet, but he’ll be more disappointed if you lie and continue to live in resentment. He fought to become an officer, against mistakes he made and with the disapproval of his father. He’ll understand more than you think about expectations and difficulty in meeting them.”

He blinked at her, and she realized what she’d done. At least the information she’d revealed had been things Jean-Luc had said outside counseling sessions. No way to get it back now.

The door opened on deck two. She stepped forward, and hesitated with one foot over the threshold, holding it open. “I have a little time right now, if you want to come talk.”

He surprised her again, following her into her office. She sat with him on the couch and smiled sadly at him. “I heard that you had to re-do a year -- that must have been difficult, not moving forward with your class. I had a similar problem, when I was completing my psychology degree.”

“I can do the work. I get top marks in engineering and technical classes, and the rest it’s just a matter of doing the work. I just feel -- stuck. Friends that I had before stopped talking to me. And the more I try, the less it feels like what I should be doing.”

“Is there something that does feel like what you should be doing?”

“That’s a big part of the problem. I really can’t figure that out. What should I do?” He was lost in thought, and showed so much in his face that she almost didn’t need empathy. He brought his eyes up to look at her and chewed the inside of his cheek. “Remember when I was new, on board, and I kept trying so hard to prove myself to everyone?”

“Of course.” She smiled at the memory of the boy he’d been. “You looked up to the captain, especially.”

“Mom told me about him before we came aboard. Told me not to bother him. And he was so -- “

“Yes,” Deanna affirmed, her smile constant.

Wes laughed, and looked at her with the affection she remembered, finally. “Do you still have the candy, in your desk?”

“I wouldn’t want to spoil your dinner,” she said, just because it was what she’d had to start telling him, when he would come by randomly and ask her for some when he was younger. They laughed together for a bit.

“Everything’s different,” he said with a little regret. “I think that was why I was upset yesterday. You’re not with Commander Riker, he’s got his own ship, and -- Worf is gone. And I think I really needed to come back home, you know?”

“I know, Wesley. But you know why everything changes. We are all learning, and growing. It’s what people do. I’m not the counselor you met any more than the captain is who he was. And you can’t go back to being ten, wide-eyed, and running around on a gigantic Galaxy-class playground, creating force fields and tractor beam enhancements.”

“Data to Troi.”

She sat open-mouthed, dismayed that she had forgotten. “Troi here -- I’m sorry, Data, I was talking to Wesley. I can be there in a few moments.”

“I am waiting in holodeck four.”

“I have to go. Taking the bridge test,” she explained. 

“Really? Wow, good for you,” he exclaimed. “Break a leg.”

“Oh, don’t you dare, that’s entirely probable,” she exclaimed, hurrying for the door. He followed as far as the lift and she flew out on deck nine, leaving him behind. She heard him ask for engineering.

Data waited on the grid. “Are you ready?”

“I’ll have to be. Let’s do this damned thing already.”

“Computer, run loaded program.” Data vanished from view, and the holodeck filled with engineering, and the staff she knew -- Geordi turned from a console with a worried look.

“Something's severed the ODN conduit between here and the antimatter storage deck,” he said. “We’re on our way to a breach, if we don’t repair it. In minutes.”

“Geordi, what needs to happen to repair it before there’s a core breach?”

“The shortest way would be to send someone in there. But that crawlway is in a warp-plasma shaft. No one would survive the radiation.” Geordi crossed his arms.

“I know that. Geordi, could you repair the conduit before the breach?”

“Yeah, I think I could.”

She could tell so easily that it was a hologram, that she wasn’t condemning her friend, but it still felt like hell. Like Jean-Luc, talking to her about the mission. “Then do it. That's an order.”

Holo-Geordi stared at her for a few seconds, turned to hurry across engineering, and opened a panel, grabbed a case of tools off a console, and went in. The rest of the holographic staff turned to consoles, doing their simulated duty. 

And then the simulation ended abruptly, atoms shimmering out of existence, and Data stood there. “Congratulations, Deanna.”

“Thank you, Data. Although it feels odd, to be congratulated for telling someone to die.”

Data had no feelings, not that she could sense, but she wondered as she had so often if there weren’t more going on than just an algorithm to fit in with humans. He seemed to be giving her a sympathetic look. “You seemed to understand what needed to happen, as it happened. My understanding is that most people fail the section that includes this scenario at least twice before they understand and pass.”

“Most people haven’t been a counselor aboard a starship for nearly eight years, observing other officers, when they take this test. Thank you for helping me through this.”

“I will inform the captain that you are fully qualified to stand watch. I assume you will also receive a promotion.”

“That’s up to the captain, isn’t it?”

“Is there a reason that he would not do so?”

She shook her head. “I need to get back to my office. Thanks again.”

They left the holodeck but he turned the other direction, and she rode back to deck two alone. It hit her only as she sat at her desk -- she’d passed the entire battery of scenarios, without issues. 

She’d passed the bridge test. 

When her annunciator went off, she reached for a tissue. After blowing her nose she admitted the guest, whose identity she could not sense. The full impact of her accomplishment, after so much anxiety about it, had overwhelmed her. She blinked up at the captain and started to laugh. “You’re going to think I do nothing but sit in here crying,” she exclaimed, embarrassed. 

His grin was reassuring. He spread his hands, as if waving away the statement. “I heard that I have another commander, on my bridge. I had to come congratulate you.”

She came around the desk and hugged him. It amused her, that she could hug Captain Picard and feel just the same old affection, nothing sexual about it, after having him make her wildly happy in his bed. And then as she backed away he reached for her neck, and she stood still while he took away the hollow pip and added another solid one -- she assumed that was what he was doing with her collar. 

“There,” he said, quite satisfied with himself. “So what are you crying about?”

“I passed the bridge test.”

Confused, he crossed his arms. “So if you failed, you would laugh?”

“Oh, no,” she said, a sinking feeling in her stomach. “I -- I passed the bridge test, and it was -- I told -- I tried to take it last year,” she said at last. 

“Then why -- “ He thought furiously for a moment. “But you didn’t take it.”

She knew he would question, as upset as he was getting, so she confessed. “I talked to Will about it. He gave me the first section, and I failed it. I was so discouraged, and he didn’t tell me I could retake it.”

Jean-Luc was so taken aback that he took a step backward. A moment passed, as he fought the urge to shout. “You’re telling me that he failed to fully inform you of the -- Deanna, I’m sorry. I wish I had known.”

“So do I,” she said quietly. “Can you do me a favor?”

“That depends.” He felt a little trepidation, but he waited.

“Can you hold my hand, while I listen to Will’s message?”

“No. Come here.”

So she stood in his arms, held against his chest, while she asked the computer to play the message from Captain Riker. Dread tied a knot in her stomach.

“Hello, Deanna. I wanted to send you an apology -- I know you’re not answering my calls, because you’re still upset. I’ve been thinking about what happened, and I know that my frustration and anger blinded me. I’m sorry that I lost it. I think I’ve always had this assumption, that what we had between us would pull us together again. I was so sure, that I felt it -- I thought you were reaching out for me. But I guess that wasn’t true, it was just my imagination. So I hope we can let bygones be bygones, and be friends again. Forgive me?”

Deanna closed her eyes and started to tremble. Jean-Luc’s arms only tightened around her. She was about to tell him her theory, that she had been focused on him and that perhaps Will had, via some residual piece of whatever was left of their bond, felt that and misinterpreted it completely -- but the computer went on to the next message with a quiet tone denoting the end of the first. Will’s voice in the second message was strained, and it sounded like he was crying.

“I don’t know what you did. I suppose it’s really over now. So that must have been what you were wanting, so I guess I have to be happy for you that you got it. Good bye, Deanna.”

She raised her head to look at Jean-Luc, shocked. “Free,” she whispered, a smile bursting out as she started to laugh. 

He kissed her with abandon, until her first appointment shattered the moment and then she scrambled to get a tissue, to wipe her lipstick off his lips, and try to dry her cheeks and restore her composure. By the time Giles came in, the captain was leaving, and she smiled in welcome as always.


	19. The Counselor's Counselor

Deanna got through the two appointments she had in the morning, and as she came out of the lift on the bridge McCormick came to attention. “Commander on the bridge!”

Suddenly everyone was on their feet, clapping. She stood in front of the lift, smiling back at her happy friends, and put her hands behind her back and bowed a little.

“Congratulations,” Natchez exclaimed. “Commander.”

“As you were,” she intoned firmly.

Everyone sat down again, grinning, and she came down to touch the annunciator on the ready room door. She knew Wesley was inside, talking to the captain, and smiled at him as she sat down next to him.

“You did it,” Wes exclaimed. “Congratulations!”

“Thank you. You’ve resolved a few things?”

He gaped at her for a few seconds. She’d have to start being more guarded, again, about what she sensed, she thought grimly. “Well... I haven’t told mom. But the captain said I could hang out for a while, on board, until I figure it all out, what I want to do. Thanks for catching me before I made any more mistakes than I already have.”

The immediate shock from Jean-Luc told her that Wes hadn’t mentioned her, in his conversation with him. “You would have figured it out,” she said gently.

“Yeah, maybe -- after alienating more people and spending too much time being angry for the wrong reasons.” Wes hesitated, so very pointedly not looking at the captain -- his head actually turned slightly toward the door. “What you said before, about -- you were right. It’s better if I’m open about things, with… people who care.”

“Trust is difficult, sometimes, when you feel you’re failing someone you care about.”

“I’m going to Ten Forward. Thanks again.” Wes stood, and after looking down at her for a few seconds, he suddenly leaned down and kissed her on the cheek, and practically ran for the door.

Deanna put her hand to her forehead and closed her eyes, sighing. When she opened them again, she saw what she expected, Jean-Luc, amused, watching her as he slumped in his chair.

“I’m guessing Mr. Crusher had a crush, for a while,” he said, much to her humiliation. “It was a nice guess, what you said before about Beverly and I, or perhaps a smokescreen?”

“Everyone on this ship is damned lucky I’m so forgiving,” she snapped -- he laughed at it, and she grinned, enjoying that she had someone she could snap at without repercussions.

“He’s a boy. They have vivid imaginations and wild thoughts, about any attractive woman -- as you know better than I do, no doubt.”

“Where’s my lunch?”

“Yes, Ma’am.” He went to the replicator, and returned to put a blue leaf salad in front of her. He had a plate for himself.

“I’m glad he talked to you about it. He made me worry.”

Jean-Luc was indeed disappointed, but in a subdued manner -- he picked up his sandwich. “At least he started to talk about it, with someone. He said he had been quite determined not to let us down, and it was obvious he was suffering for it.”

“I’ve been thinking about how to tell Alexander I’m going,” she said, shifting the conversation completely. Now that Wes was on the right trajectory, there were more pressing matters. “I need to tell him now, give him time to deal with it, instead of waiting until I leave.”

“I spoke with Beverly briefly about him,” Jean-Luc said. “She thinks that instead of leaving him in your empty quarters and trying to spend time with him there, we should take turns having him stay with us. It would take very little to have a room added to my quarters, for him.”

Deanna put her fork down and had to blink back a few tears. When she managed to loosen her tongue, she said, “You would do that for him?”

He gave her a look that suggested she must be slow, or possibly clueless. But he felt satisfaction, and affection, and took another bite of his sandwich.

“Thank you. He’ll need all the help we can give him -- I’d like to have you and Beverly there, when I talk to him. In fact -- “ She thought about all the people she’d had involved, in giving the little boy enough activity and attention to keep him involved and balanced. “I’d like to have everyone there. Data, and Mike, and Guinan, the staff at school. I want to surround him with everyone who’s spent time with him. Show him that he’s not going to be all alone and everyone will be there while I’m gone.”

“I think we can arrange that. If you want, I’ll have everyone meet in one of the conference rooms at fourteen hundred, right after you pick him up.”

She gave him a fond smile. “That would be perfect.”

“Make it so?”

She nodded, and wanted to hug him, and the look on his face and his surprise suggested that she’d managed to push her emotions to him. He smiled and reached for his glass of water.

“This will take a little time to get used to, I think,” he said. “Definitely not used to having that sort of connection with someone.”

Deanna almost dropped her salad. She put it down on the edge of the desk instead. And now he put aside his food as well.

“You look… ill. Are you all right?”

“I didn’t even -- does it -- is it anything like -- “ She took a moment to calm herself. “I hope it isn’t anything like the Borg.”

She seemed to be good at shocking him. He started to shake his head in disbelief. “I’m beginning to get the idea that my experience was traumatizing for you, more than -- but of course. You always take care of everyone. No one takes care of you.”

“I take care of myself.”

“Oh, well, that’s why you’re afraid that I’m being triggered by a voluntary, extremely pleasant experience with an irresistible woman -- it’s all been taken care of, it’s not causing you any anxiety at all.”

Deanna laughed at it because it was all she could do not to cry, surrendered to it completely and practically collapsed in her chair. His tone and delivery were pitch-perfect, and sarcasm was never something he used in their usual settings. And he watched her laugh, giggle, snort a little at it, and felt the same joy that she did, at this comfort they had with each other -- she stopped after a bit and stared across the desk at him, grinning like an idiot. It was like an echo chamber. After a few more moments the sensation of doubled emotions ebbed, and gradually went away.

“Perhaps I can help you with that,” he said, as if none of it had happened. “We can schedule a session for tonight. After twenty-one hundred?”

After Alexander’s bedtime. She felt anticipation start in her belly, coiling and settling in as she thought about last night’s “session.” She knew he could see that she concurred, and sat up to retrieve her salad.

“There’s another matter,” he said, moving along to something that made the undercurrent of desire retreat rapidly.

“Yes?”

“I cleared my inbox, finally, and there’s a Dr. Carlson requesting permission to come aboard. Isn’t that your counselor?”

A wave of shock rolled over Deanna. “What? She’s at Starfleet Medical, how could she be here?”

“Perhaps she has friends in the Q Continuum? In any case, I suspect you haven’t checked your messages since this morning?”

Deanna sighed. “No. I’ll contact her after lunch. She might want to talk to you.” She was pretty sure Lettie would, in fact.

“That’s fine. We’re docked, there’s not a lot going on other than some minor repairs and Geordi’s work in the nacelle, as you know.”

She nodded, and went back to eating, slowly, hoping her stomach would settle. She talked to him about Alexander’s grades in history and math, which were poor due to his difficulties focusing in class, and he tolerated her venting that worry with a moderate amount of his own concern. And then it occurred to her, as her thoughts strayed to their relationship as they often did, that it all felt normal. Being this way with him was her new normal.

“Bridge to captain,” McCormick announced, after a warning chirp.

“Yes, Commander?”

“You have an incoming transmission from Admiral Nechayev.”

He shot her a look, and she smiled and took her salad with her, heading for her office. Once there, she ate a couple more bites, and asked for messages from Dr. Carlson. He was right -- Lettie had tried to contact her, while she was working with Green Giles.

“Computer, open a channel -- I want to speak to Dr. Leticia Carlson,” she said, knowing the computer would locate and contact her without difficulty. Which was how Lettie had surprised her -- the computer didn’t need her to specify where a person was, if it had a connection to the subspace network.

“Deanna,” came the response. “Good to hear from you. I was able to make a short detour on my way back from a conference -- I tried to contact your captain, as well, since I thought you would be in session.”

“Yes, I just heard from him. I’ll meet you in our transporter room -- I have appointments but they can be postponed.”

“Good, I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

Now it was butterflies in her stomach for other reasons -- she contacted the bridge as she set out for the main transporter room, and as she came in the door the chief, Mr. Timmons, was in the process of beaming a couple of lieutenants to the starbase. The next contact was the starbase transporter room, sending Lettie over, and within a minute a tall dark-haired woman in uniform stood on the transporter pad. She was a lieutenant-commander, Deanna noticed.

“Lettie,” Deanna said warmly, holding out a hand. The other psychologist took it and shook confidently.

“It’s so good to meet with you in person, finally,” Lettie said. She had a pleasant friendly demeanor, but Deanna could tell that she was already under scrutiny. There was an ongoing sort of tension present -- the kind that people tended to have when they were on duty and focused, and all business.

“Have you had a tour of a Galaxy class starship before?” Deanna asked, as they left the transporter room. “I’d be happy to show you around.”

That surprised Lettie. Her smile said she was happy, her emotions shifted to curiosity and a hint of suspicion. “That would be lovely,” she exclaimed, her voice even and almost melodious. They entered the lift together.

“Engineering,” she said, surprising Lettie again. “The captain is on a call with the fleet admiral. We’ll work our way up from engineering, so by the time we get there, he’ll have calmed down again.”

“Does the captain usually get upset after talking to admirals?”

Deanna wanted to kick herself. She smiled, in her practiced way, and shook her head. “It’s a tense atmosphere in the fleet lately. I’m going on a mission next week, into the Demilitarized Zone, and it’s probably why the admiral is calling.”

“A mission?”

They left the lift after two decks, and she led the way to main engineering a short walk down the corridor. “It’s a long story, but I think I can tell you once we’re not in corridors. You probably have adequate clearance.”

The doors opening with the usual pneumatic sigh forestalled Lettie’s reaction. Deanna went in, and Geordi’s head turned, and he grinned and rapped out “Commander on the deck!” And it was a repeat of the bridge -- everyone came to attention and saluted.

“At ease,” Deanna said with a grin. “Was there some announcement I missed?”

“Oh, come on, you know you can’t keep a secret on a ship,” Geordi said with a chuckle, starting to applaud and joined by everyone else. Happily for her, he only let it go for a minute, and redirected his department to get back to work, as he came around the main console. “So what can we do for you, _Commander,_?”

“I’m just showing Dr. Carlson around. Taking her on a tour.” She caught herself smiling at him fondly, and apparently it was noticeable.

“Everything okay?” he asked in a low tone.

“You already know I passed the bridge test today. The last scenario involved sending you out the crawlspaces to fix the broken ODN conduit, to save the ship from a warp core breach.”

He lost the smile, cocked his head, and gave it a shake. “Aw, man. You aren’t going to report me for it if I hug you?”

She knew he’d had to do that, send someone to their death, as she had had him in to talk him through the aftermath. “You wouldn’t want people to talk about us, would you?” She laughed with him, and briefly gripped his hand. “Thank you anyway. Do you have a moment to talk about your engines in a manner that is understandable to non-engineers? I suppose we could start with what an ODN has to do with the engines in the first place? Dr. Carlson, I’m sorry, this is Lieutenant-Commander Geordi LaForge, our chief engineer.”

She let Geordi engage with her in his usual affable way, and followed them quietly down toward the warp core while he described the engines and summarized how it all worked. Some of the staff shot her friendly smiles, as she waited. Lettie might already have an idea about how warp engines worked, but she listened politely, and asked a few questions, and then excused them to move on. Deanna waved as she led her guest from engineering.

“See you at poker tomorrow night,” Geordi called after them.

“You have a friendly engineering staff,” Lettie exclaimed as they returned to the lift. “What was that about the bridge test?”

“I finished the last section this morning. I was a lieutenant-commander, until just a couple of hours ago.”

Lettie was looking at her dubiously with her hazel eyes. “I wonder what led you to do that?”

“I tried and failed the first section last year, actually, and decided to try again. Computer, sickbay.”

“You may be the first counselor to do so.”

“There have been times when I’ve had to operate as an officer -- an incident that left me on the bridge, in command, while the ship was damaged and all other ranking officers were in other parts of the ship, for example. If you’d like the logs are available -- I can provide the time index.”

Lettie frowned at her. “This isn’t an inquiry, Deanna.”

Deanna gave her a level stare, her disbelief obvious. “Isn’t it?”

“I’m here because it was convenient, and I thought your suggestion to meet you and your captain was a good one.”

“I can tell that you believe I am like every other Betazoid you’ve met. Although there are not so many of us in Starfleet as it is. I’m an empath, and that’s not something I control -- there are things I can do to try to block, but that becomes tiresome. Most of the time I simply ignore what I sense. Like I ignored the captain’s feelings, for months, until he asked for a different counselor and started to request more of my off duty time.”

It shook her, and the lift opened down the corridor from sickbay. Deanna waited but Lettie didn’t move; the door closed again and the lift remained stationary, awaiting orders.

“You didn’t tell me that before, and it’s not exactly spelled out in your records.” There was a faint note of disapproval in her voice.

“It’s hardly pertinent information when one is communicating over subspace. I can’t sense people across the quadrant.” She regarded Lettie with a classic warm smile, her usual expression in any situation on duty. “There is honestly nothing that you can feel that can surprise me. I’m accustomed to all manner of responses from people. If you would like a full list of people who have feelings for me and what those feelings are, I can oblige. There’s a technician aboard who had a holodeck addiction, who made his fantasies about me quite clear once his obsessive programs were discovered. I could tell you who’s jealous, or who is angry. I know there is one person aboard who actively dislikes me. Nothing is anything I would ever tell my crewmates.”

Lettie didn’t have a ready response for that. She took a step, the door opened, and Deanna went first, letting her counselor think about what she’d said.

Sickbay was a repeat of the bridge and engineering -- Beverly called everyone to attention, and saluted her.

“This is Dr. Carlson,” she told the doctor, after the embarrassing cheering was over and she and Lettie were going into Beverly’s office. “She’s my counselor. She was able to stop by to actually meet me, and I’m giving her a brief tour of the ship before taking her up to meet the captain.”

Beverly gave her a piercing look, that went with the suspicion she felt. She hadn’t told Beverly she was in counseling, but the pieces weren’t hard to put together for someone who understood therapy in the context of Starfleet. She turned a polite smile on Lettie and offered her something to drink, and sat when the offer was politely refused.

“I know that crew on starships can become quite close and familiar,” Lettie said casually, “but I’m a little surprised at how everyone is reacting to your promotion. On a ship this size it’s surely not that you have that many friends.”

“There are three kinds of people on the _Enterprise_ ,” Beverly said. “Those who have been to Deanna for counseling, those who don’t go because they are her good friends, and those who don’t need counseling but see her during performance reviews. Everyone knows her on some level, and I have yet to meet one who doesn’t like her.”

“There’s one.”

Beverly frowned. “I thought you were on better terms with Ro.”

“I am. She has to work with me, so she does. Did. She’ll probably be back, when I return from the mission, so hopefully nothing happens while I’m gone to change that.”

“The captain hinted at something, but he hasn’t told me yet. That usually means he really doesn’t like the idea.”

Deanna thought about shifting the conversation away from it, but Lettie was very interested, and so would likely follow up with questions anyway. “That would be an understatement. He lost his security chief on an away mission, he lost Sito to an undercover operation, he’s anxious that he might have lost Ro to the Maquis -- the last thing he really wants is to send one of his senior officers on something that sounds like a long shot.”

Beverly stared at her in disbelief. “You think he doesn’t like it because he doesn’t want to lose an officer.”

“He doesn’t. And we haven’t mentioned the fact that his first officer is now a captain, and now that Data has stepped up it will only be a matter of time before he is offered his own command -- we know that they need starship captains, and he would be an excellent choice. The senior staff are his friends. It’s significant for him.”

“Deanna,” Lettie said, sounding a bit insulted.

“He chose me, for an undercover mission for which I get to play the part of a prostitute, to recover an operative and rescue intelligence that may save millions of lives, without hesitation. I’m not going to disrespect that, or him, by trivializing how difficult that was for him to do, but I’m also not interested in telling you anything about his thoughts or feelings on the matter,” Deanna exclaimed firmly, not quite angrily. “He can speak for himself on that.”

Beverly and Lettie were stunned to silence for a full minute. She sensed that Beverly was about to speak, but was not able to do so. “Picard to Troi.”

“Troi here,” she said with the practiced ease of long habit.

“Come to my ready room, please.”

“May I bring Dr. Carlson with me?” He sounded, and felt, calm enough that she was reasonably certain he was alone and nothing was amiss. Likely it was something the admiral had said that he wanted to discuss with her.

“Of course. At your earliest convenience?”

“We’re on our way.” Deanna smiled at Beverly. “What did you want to talk to me about? I can swing back by later on, if it’s needed.”

“I have a couple of referrals for you, but they can wait -- if you’re about to depart for weeks I can send them to Sarah.” She was back to doctor mode, in an instant.

“Thank you, Dr. Crusher.” Deanna rose and was off for the bridge at a brisk pace.

Lettie caught up to her, recovering from her surprise. “Dr. Crusher is a good friend, you said.”

Deanna led her into the lift. “Bridge,” she said, and turned to look at Lettie as it went into motion. “We maintain a level of formality when we’re on duty. It helps. Don’t officers on other ships do the same?”

She knew that the variability from ship to ship was broad. She’d spoken to other ship’s counselors, at conferences. Lettie gazed at her, feeling uncertainty and a sharp curiosity.

They emerged on the bridge -- Mike shot a smile at her, still happy for her about the promotion, and she returned it as she led Lettie down the bridge on the route she trod multiple times a day.

“Commander,” Data said, rising from the center seat. “I wanted to ask if you would be available to cover alpha shift tomorrow. I am intending to take leave on the starbase.”

“Let me look at my schedule -- I might be able to take half of it, but only if I’m not with clients,” she said. “This is Dr. Carlson, Data. She’s one of my colleagues, from Starfleet Medical.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Carlson. I hope you enjoy your visit.”

“Thank you -- it’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Data. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Deanna wondered about that as she reached for the annunciator and led the way into the ready room. The captain looked up from his monitor and smiled politely.

“Dr. Carlson,” Deanna said, gesturing and turning to look at their guest. “This is Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Captain, this is Dr. Leticia Carlson.”

He rose and offered a hand, which she came to shake before accepting his invitation to be seated. That he was putting them across the desk from him said he needed the distance -- usually he seated guests less formally, in the sectional sofa nearer the door. He offered refreshments as usual, but she declined.

“I don’t know if Deanna told you anything about why I’ve come,” Lettie began, settling in the chair.

“You’re her counselor. For which I have to thank you -- she appears to have recovered rapidly from the symptoms she was experiencing.” He glanced at Deanna, and smirked a little. “I suppose having a willing client helped immensely.”

“He does this -- that’s a self-deprecating comment on his own recovery process,” Deanna said. He scowled, just a little, at her. “If I don’t translate she’s just going to ask questions and keep you here for hours. I know how you feel about counselors and questions.”

Lettie laughed, but underneath it she started to gather herself for the interview -- a process Deanna was familiar with. The melange of tension, curiosity, dread and also a dead certainty that begat determination was the most revealing thing yet. “Captain, you’ve experienced a number of traumatic incidents,” she began.

“Is that what this is about?” He asked it with a mild tone that made Deanna almost grin -- Lettie would probably find out quickly what she was up against, if she wasn’t careful. “That’s been some time ago, now.”

“It isn’t a question of your status, Captain. I was going to say that I’m aware that Counselor Troi has been instrumental in your recovery from those incidents.”

“So you’ve probably read her reports.”

Lettie hesitated. “No. I don’t access such protected information. You aren’t my client.”

“Then I’m a little confused,” he confessed, turning to Deanna now as if waiting for her to explain.

“She’s here to find out if either one of us is crazy,” Deanna said.

She might have thrown a grenade and gotten less of a reaction -- Lettie reeled, showing a little of the surprise on her face, and made a slight sound that might have gone with her dismay. Jean-Luc folded his hands on his desk and gave her a perfect raised eyebrow -- he could be almost Vulcan, probably channeling memories of Sarek.

“Didn’t you establish that I wasn’t?”

Deanna wanted to be sarcastic or flip. She tried not to, and ended up with a compromise. “It’s what usually goes through people’s minds, when they are told that a senior officer is knocking boots with the captain.”

He was almost as bad, with the comical frown and a head shake. “I don’t wear boots in bed.”

“Captain,” Lettie put in, determined, trying to rescue it from their irreverence. “I’m not really here in an official capacity. So far as I am concerned this all falls under the confidentiality that Deanna has every right to expect from me. Unless there’s actually something to report -- I do work for Starfleet. I was assigned to Deanna because I have adequate clearance, given the nature of some of the assignments this vessel tends to have. She invited me, suggesting that I would understand more if I were able to meet you both in this context. It doesn’t have anything to do with believing you’re crazy, or that you’re doing anything wrong.”

Some of that was true. Deanna had to pick it apart, remember how the emotions played out as Lettie spoke, but Jean-Luc beat her to responding.

“But it does. Because you started to question her, when you found out that our relationship wasn’t the easy, straightforward thing that Starfleet likes people to have, in their employ. Because the fact that people in Starfleet can’t simply send each other out to die is somehow considered a flaw and the assumption is always that there is a bias, with a friend. It clearly is not the case that we are all of a singular purpose, because we all have our own unique reasons for being here. But it would be wholly unlike me, to live my entire life as I have, sacrificing my every waking moment for days, sometimes weeks at a time, in the service of the Federation, attempting to make rational decisions that are consistent with the values of the Federation as well as my own principles, and then suddenly decide that because a woman I love happens to be an officer, with the same determination and dedication to her principles, that I should simply cease to have any principles at all if she is called upon to make similar sacrifices. I should somehow protect her from her decision to be an officer -- what an offensive suggestion that is,” he exclaimed, his scowl now a genuine one.

Lettie stared at him with that blend of dread and determination. “I doubt that anyone would assume either of you were anything less than professional, Captain.”

Deanna looked away, unsure that she could maintain her pleasant smile in the face of the lie. It surely must be turning into a maniacal grin.

“If only we could all be so certain.” The captain gazed at Lettie with the calm that anyone who knew him could tell meant someone was about to get a dressing-down. “I expect my officers to disagree with me. To tell me when my judgment is suspect, to question behavior if there is any indication that something is wrong. It’s saved the ship, it’s saved lives, and I refuse to allow this ship to fall into the trap of officers blindly teetering along in my wake, following orders without thought. I know that my senior officers will question if I appear to favor her in any way. Ask them yourself, if you like.”

Lettie spent a moment, but she had started to waver. She turned to look at Deanna, as if wanting to check her reaction. “Is that true?”

“Oh, yes. He doesn’t have officers on the bridge who won’t tell the truth.”

Leticia stared at her -- the scrutiny would be unnerving if Deanna couldn’t sense the indecision behind it. “You feel that the relationship will not interfere.”

Deanna affected a nonchalance that she didn’t have to work hard at -- there were logs and notes to support everything. “I’ve been aboard for seven years, going on eight. I’m hardly the first woman he’s ever noticed, and I’m certainly better informed as to his emotional health than anyone else aboard -- why the hell am I going to let him even speak to me about it, when I know he wants to tell him if he’s making mistakes? Why would I let myself be put in a position to jeopardize either of us?”

“You don’t think that having a bias skews that perception?”

Deanna rolled her eyes. “My bias, that led to me running down the corridor at night, to help him through a nightmare? Do you do that for clients? Sitting with them while they suffer? He’s my friend,” she exclaimed firmly. “Everything else is beside the point. If Starfleet wants me to say that I have a bias, I’ll say it, but it was there a long time ago if it exists, and it’s never been an impediment.”

Lettie affected a bemused expression that she tried to use to cover surprise. “Never?”

“There was that one time,” Jean-Luc put in. “Remember when you snapped at me, for daring to help you, when you tried to quit? That could have been my bias.”

“You were lousy at reassuring,” she said, smiling at the memory. “I’m so glad you don’t have that problem any more. Also that I didn’t actually leave.”

“So I wasn’t as bad as you thought,” he said.

“You ordered small children to stop crying, Jean-Luc.”

“And you gently corrected that behavior, until I started crying,” he replied.

“He’s being ridiculous. He doesn’t like this, it’s a waste of time, and that’s what we get,” Deanna told Lettie, as if she hadn’t been questioning them.

“I don’t like being questioning about something that isn’t a problem,” he shot back, letting the ire show.

There was a moment of silence, during which the tension grew thicker. Deanna leaned forward a little. “What did you want to see me about, Captain?”

“The admiral informed me that Ro has been spotted,” he said, relieved to be moving away from the previous conversation. Now he was ignoring Lettie, as if she wasn’t even there. “On Telleris Four.”

“That’s not anywhere near Mendhel Two. Did they make contact with her?”

“No, the local authorities responded to a bulletin Starfleet Security put out, that had a picture of her. She was involved in a scuffle involving Cardassian officers, and escaped with the four others she was with.”

Deanna thought about that. “Telleris is an agricultural world. Not unlike Bajor. There’s a large Bajoran population, she could vanish easily without leaving the planet.”

“There was an immediate lockdown, on departing vessels. Searches failed to turn them up.” He paused, looking at her with a little distaste.

“I could find her easily, if she’s awake,” Deanna said. “For that matter I’ll know if she is on the planet, from orbit. I know you don’t like to use me like a tricorder, but under the circumstances it seems to be the one option.”

“This may become an extended tour of the zone, for you. If she managed to get off the planet she could be anywhere within that sector.”

“You’re being called upon to locate a runaway officer?” Lettie asked, finally speaking her curiosity.

“An officer in deep cover. Ro Llaren is a member of our crew,” Deanna explained.

“Ro -- you mentioned her before, the one who doesn’t like you,” Lettie exclaimed.

Deanna sat up a little straighter. “She is a member of our crew,” she said firmly.

“That will be all, Commander,” Jean-Luc said.

Deanna stood at once. “Dr. Carlson?”

“Thank you, Captain,” Lettie said, rising to follow Deanna from the room. She went along silently, and it took seconds to ride the lift to deck two, and a few more to walk to her office.

Deanna offered her a beverage, and finally she accepted it. With tea in hand, Lettie relaxed at last.

“Do you have any more questions?” Deanna asked.

“You were his counselor for… seven years?”

“Less than that. The last real therapy we had was after he was tortured by Gul Madred, and he was seeing Cardassians in his sleep for weeks. A little more than a year ago. Most of the time I am more of a consultant, for him.”

Lettie nodded thoughtfully. “He’s very strong willed.”

Deanna pressed her lips together, trying to avoid a smile. “Yes.”

“Does he lecture like that often?”

“Only if he has to. He doesn’t suffer fools very well.”

Lettie sighed, weary and resigned. The softening was a good sign, Deanna thought. “What did I do wrong?”

“You lied to him, about why you came here. I know what’s said about him,” Deanna confessed. “He’s stubborn, sometimes rebellious, they say. A difficult patient. Nearly everyone who has difficulty with him is guilty of failing to be adaptable. You have to know how to listen to him.”

“I realize that you know if I’m stretching the truth, but why would he assume that I was lying to him?”

Deanna did smile at it, looking down into her tea. “Captain Picard is one of the most observant people I’ve ever met. He is a shrewd, intelligent and perceptive man, with a long history of dealing with artifice and deceit. He knew you were lying because he’s not going to believe you came all the way here just to meet us. You were at a conference, but it makes no sense for you to be here. There’s nothing wrong. There’s been no accusation, no court martial, no suggestion of anything amiss.”

“You told him that I questioned your relationship, before I even got here.”

“Yes, because I tell him about things that will have an impact on him. You would have had a much colder reception if I hadn’t.”

Lettie drank her tea, and put the cup on the table in front of them. “Why did you start joking with him? Why did you disrupt what I was trying to do?”

Deanna held her cup in both hands and balanced it on her thigh. “You can’t just do that with him. You can’t start talking about his trauma before he has an idea of who you are. You might as well walk into a negotiation with the Tellarites and smile, and be pleasant.”

“I was trying to -- “

“You missed what he was saying. He told you that you were treating him like a client, and you weren’t paying attention. I was trying to shift the tone to friendly and conversational, and you wouldn’t budge. You’re trying to get a sense of our relationship, but you wasted your opportunity to do that by trying to control the conversation, just like any counselor would with a client who’s trying to avoid sensitive material. You weren’t listening. He lectured you because you weren’t going to listen to him anyway, so he gave you what he thought you would want to hear.”

Lettie’s hand went to her mouth, as she thought about it. “I did that, didn’t I?”

“Environment helps, as well. The king in his castle.”

A chagrined smile softened her even more. “Do you think I have a second chance?”

Deanna checked the emotional environment, knowing she probably looked thoughtful, and found that all was quiet on the bridge. Jean-Luc was calmer. Deanna met Lettie’s eyes, and sighed.

“You still think it’s wrong.”

“I’m trying to see something that tells me it’s possible that it could work. Do you read the Starfleet Medical bimonthly?”

“You’re going to quote me case studies, the analyses of inappropriate relationships between officers that tore apart a command team. Yes.”

Lettie frowned, collected herself, and launched her attack. A friendly, concerned attack. “Here’s my main difficulty -- I’ve read your papers, both of them, and I’ve admired your work. I’ve heard from other personnel who speak very highly of your level of professionalism and your dedication. Here on your ship, you’re promoted to a full commander, after taking the bridge test, and one of the things I did get from your captain was the complete trust that he has in you, that he accepts your judgment without question.”

“You weren’t listening correctly,” Deanna said, shaking her head slowly. “That isn’t what he said.”

“All right, what did he say?”

“He told you that he’s aware that he’s fallible, and he depends on his officers to be aware and be careful. His standards for behavior have always been high, falling in line with regulations. The regulation is that personal relationships should not be allowed to interfere in the officer’s duties. He’s gotten no feedback from anyone that something is off, and the senior staff is aware of our relationship. There’s been nothing untoward while we’re on shift. I’m usually here, seeing clients, and he’s on the bridge, unless there is an alert and all of us are present. We have meals together -- but we did that before, from time to time. He still has breakfast with Beverly, he still spends time with Data -- he has a very small circle of friends. He’s extremely selective, and he’s very protective. He went with Worf to the Klingon homeworld, not on a mission, but as his friend. Do you want me to list everything else he’s done, for his friends?”

Lettie smiled at her then. “All right. But, you know that it will affect both of you differently than just a friendship.”

“That wasn’t anyone’s contention. Of course it affects both of us. People with stable relationships tend to be happier than loners. It does not affect how we perform our duties, which is Starfleet’s concern. Isn’t it?”

She nodded, and her relaxed stance and acceptance were encouraging. “If I wanted to talk to him again….”

"He's not going to talk to you."

"I'd like to try." Lettie was too insistent. There had to be more to this than just her curiosity.

Deanna glanced at her desk. There was an hour and a half left in the afternoon, before the meeting of Alexander’s caregivers was supposed to begin. She tapped her badge. “Troi to Picard.”

“Counselor?”

“I’d like to see you in my office. If you have the time.”

A pause. “I will be there momentarily.”

Deanna picked up Lettie’s cup, returned to the replicator, and recycled both cups. “Three cups of Earl Grey, hot,” she said, and a small tray with three steaming mugs materialized. She brought it back to the sofa, picked up one, and took three steps toward the door, which opened as she held out the mug.

He hesitated, and took the mug. “Trying to butter me up?”

“Perceptive as always,” she said, smiling. She looked him in the eye, and waved at the sofa. “I didn’t opt for soothing music, it seemed too obvious. Would you like to sit with us and have tea?”

He chose the opposite end of the couch from Lettie. “You realize there is work to do?”

“You realize that I’m trying to help you keep your girlfriend?”

“This is -- “

“Captain,” she said, gently, with the firm tone that had been all she needed once he’d learned he could trust the counselor.

“Oh, well, perhaps there will be a red alert,” he exclaimed, settling back to sip tea. “At least you know how I like my tea.”

Deanna sat between them. “You were off on the wrong foot. All she really wanted to know was why you think your relationship with me won’t affect your work.”

“No, all she wanted to do was pry into my business -- I’ll bet Pulaski was behind this.”

Deanna smiled at the bluster. “Just tell her.”

“No. She can do her job, I will do mine.” He sipped tea, and didn’t look at either of them.

“Are you going to wait until an admiral directs you to talk to someone less pleasant than she is about me, or are you going to be pre-emptive?”

He glared at her with ire that surprised Lettie. “There’s no reason to expect an admiral would do anything.”

Deanna glanced at Lettie, measured the response from her, and raised her tea to her lips. “What makes you think an admiral hasn’t already done something?”

Now he was less angry, more calculating. He had been tracking her as she’d expected, even though he didn’t appear to be looking at them. “I don’t think any relationship I have ever had has failed to affect my work,” he said. “You told me that isolating myself was equally damaging, as is the other extreme, allowing social relationships to impair command decisions. I came to agree with that -- I stopped isolating myself. This didn’t happen because I was following an impulse.”

“Captain, you are -- “

Deanna shot a glare at Lettie, and it stopped her. “Jean-Luc.”

“What? I don’t have time for this, Counselor.“

“Jean-Luc,” she said again, shifting to lounge on a hip and face him, staring, draping herself on the back of the sofa.

“Because I’m a grumpy old man set in his ways, and you aren’t going to change that,” he snapped. His head turned and the change in her posture registered. He stared for a moment. “You’re in uniform, knock it off.”

“Thank you, Captain,” she said.

He was up and gone, taking the mug with him. Deanna sat up again, and turned to her guest. “Did you hear it?”

“I think he might have said he was doing something his counselor suggested,” she said quietly. “He has a plan. It doesn’t tell me anything about the effectiveness of the plan, or the nature of the plan. It was enough for you, though.”

“That isn’t enough, because I’m biased?”

Lettie crossed her legs and drank tea. “Deanna, this makes more sense to me. I think I’m on the verge of reconciling things. He looks at you in uniform and sees an officer -- that’s obvious. Is that consistent?”

“It always has been.”

“So that must be his plan. To continue to do that. And you challenged him to stop doing it, and he refused.”

“Another officer was in the room, otherwise he might have loosened up more. But not completely.”

“So tell me, how are your symptoms now? Are you still having flashbacks? Anything of concern?”

“I haven’t had anything noticeable in the last twenty-four hours.” Deanna smiled into her mug. At least Lettie seemed to have gotten what she needed, for now.

"Are you going to want to switch counselors?"

Deanna flicked her gaze back to Lettie's face. "Are you going to stop lying to me?"

Lettie smiled. "There are certain realities, in Starfleet. You know that."

"I'm not certain I can trust you."

She sensed the sudden tension, and its slow unwinding. Lettie lowered the mug to her thigh, and stared, wide-eyed. "That's why you suggested that I come here, in the first place. So you can read me. You weren't sure you could trust me. When I started to question it was a potential threat, to you."

"To him." Deanna set aside her cup and folded her hands in her lap. "You will not damage his career with pointless allegations."

Her surprise was mostly due to the hard tone, probably. "How much of what you told me is the truth?" she asked suspiciously.

Deanna smiled. "I have nothing to hide, and neither does he. I have told you nothing but the truth, just as I have always told him the truth. He's right to mistrust, sometimes, and when what I sense lines up with his judgment of a person, I pay attention. As I said -- he's always been a good judge of character."

"And the rest of his success in this endeavor will, no doubt, be in his choosing you, as a partner." Lettie glanced around the office, leaned forward to place her tea on the table with Deanna's, and nodded. "I'll send you a list of referrals."

"Thank you."

"It's too bad," Lettie said, with a brittle smile. "I've enjoyed working with you. I wish that I hadn't been asked to do this, honestly."

"Say hello to the fleet admiral for me," Deanna said, not expecting an answer, other than the minute emotional surge that confirmed the guess.

Lettie rose and left Deanna's office without another word. Deanna sat there thinking, until she noticed the time was getting short -- she went up to the bridge, and found Jean-Luc again in his ready room. This time, she sat on his sofa. He came over from his desk to join her without a word.

"She's gone," Deanna said, meshing her fingers and cupping her knee to avoid fidgeting.

"Was all of that necessary?" He was still grouchy, not liking any of it.

"Captain," she said softly. It got his full attention immediately. "I was somewhat manipulative, on your behalf. She wasn't entirely false -- she really was at a conference, and detoured to come here. Some of the other things she said were also true. But she came because the fleet admiral asked her to. Did you tell Nechayev anything?"

"No." He sighed. "Did the counselor perhaps tell anyone?"

"If she did, I have a valid lawsuit to pursue. I wish I'd thought to ask her. What should we do?"

He sighed heavily, chewed his lip, and smiled a little. "Nothing. Yet. We'll be fine."

"Are we ready for the meeting?"

"We are. Onward, to the next challenge."


	20. Replicated Sarcasm

Alexander was beside himself when his babysitter, Lieutenant Teague, brought him into the room full of people he knew. “A party!” he shouted, running around, jumping at Deanna. She swung him around by the arms and let go, and he landed on his feet and went to the next person, and the next, giving hugs and laughing. Everyone laughed with him -- Deanna included, it was impossible not to with all the happiness in the room filling her to the brim. 

Then the captain walked in. Alexander dropped to his feet from a brief grapple with McCormick -- the two of them wrestled, as Mike was a former pro wrestler -- and turned at the sound of the door. His face lit up with a grin, encouraging, but then he bolted through the crowd and leaped at Jean-Luc like a little cannonball aiming at the captain’s broad chest.

Jean-Luc proved to have excellent reflexes. Of course. He caught the little Klingon and swung him around, then up over his shoulder in a way that said he’d done it before. While in motion, pivoting on a toe, he slid the laughing child off and down his arm, and tossed him -- no small feat, Alexander had to weigh nearly eighty pounds, by this point -- back at Mike, who caught him easily. 

“Alexander,” Deanna called, and the laughter dwindled. He came to her and grabbed at her arms, grinning. She put her hands on the sides of his head, which was what she’d done before to get him to calm, and it worked flawlessly but she sensed his suspicion.

“This is a party for you. Because I wanted to show you everyone who will be there for you, no matter what.”

“Noooo,” he started, throwing himself against her. She noticed Wesley’s surprise. He’d come with his mother, who hopefully had explained a little more to him about the situation. 

“I have to travel sometimes, and I can’t always take you with me. So I have made arrangements so you always have someone you can go to. Any of these people will help you, any time.”

“No! You can’t!” He wasn’t completely escalated, but the shrill quality of the shouting said he was well on his way. 

“Do you remember Ro Llaren?”

Sometimes, a calm question would work, where intensity wouldn’t. He wasn’t so far gone that he couldn’t recover himself, and it worked a bit -- Alexander frowned up at her, resting his cheek on her ribs. “Yes,” he said sullenly.

“I’m going to find her.”

“That’s all? What happened?”

“I don’t know. I want to find out. Would you go help a friend who needed it?”

“Yes,” he said at once. Then he stood back and looked up at her face, and screwed up his features angrily. “You’re going on a mission.”

“That happens, in Starfleet. I’ll be back in -- “

“No! NO!” He went straight to rage without a second’s notice. “I HATE YOU!”

It was too hard, to sort it all out -- everything happened in a split-second, the emotional reaction of many people experiencing a surge of adrenaline in response to a little boy turning into a rage-filled, terrified Klingon with an accurate fist that landed on her face -- for the second time in her life, she felt the crack and the sharp pain of a broken nose, and then she was trying to get him under control, rolling and thrashing to simultaneously defend herself while trying to hold him.

Mike was able to wrestle the boy off her and held him against his chest. Barely -- he kept kicking and now he was screaming incoherently. It was fortunate, she reflected, that she had a room full of officers. No one was panicked, no one was saying a word, but everyone had reacted the same, emotionally. Except Beverly, who was there as Deanna got up off the floor.

“Your nose is broken,” she said, and there was a regenerator in her hand already. Within minutes the throbbing pain was abating, and out came a hypo which took care of the rest of it as well as the headache. Deanna took the offered tissue and wiped some of the blood away from her nose and face.

Now Alexander was wailing and crying -- the sight of blood had finally registered, and he was panicked instead of angry. He was kicking less, and Deanna went to take him from Mike -- it was almost enough to overbalance her, but she held him in her arms, let him put his legs around her waist, and held him like a baby.

“I love you too,” she said, putting as much warmth as she could into it. “I’m afraid too. But I’ll be okay, and so will you.”

At least it was just sobbing, now, and not the anger. Someone put a chair behind her and someone else gave her shoulder a push, and hands at her shoulders helped her sit without dislodging the child. She heard the door a few times, while she waited for Alexander to slow down to the point that she could talk and be heard. 

“I don’t want you to die,” Alexander cried at last, and then repeated it several times until Deanna shoved him away, put him on his feet, took his shoulders in his hands.

“I’m not going to die. I’m going to do what I always do. Don’t even,” she exclaimed, waving her hand in front of his face and keeping him from saying what she’d heard before. He closed his mouth again. “You’re going to be fine. Breathe.”

He was finally at the point that he would hear her and obey. “I want ice cream,” he said. 

“In a minute. Breathe.”

He finally calmed enough to let her feel safe to suggest that he go with Guinan. She smiled at him to reassure him enough that he would go, and watched him follow the hostess out the door. She’d thought about going with him, to quarters, but she felt drained, so completely -- it was, her clinical self said, a combination of things, the previous trauma, the injury to the face, being overwhelmed by the combined emotions in the room. It probably hadn’t helped, having the intense sexual encounter the night before, she had to admit sadly -- everything was taxing in some fashion, she had limited energy, she usually protected herself more carefully than this. And dealing with Lettie had been the icing on the cake. She should have postponed this at least a day. 

Her head felt hollow, her ears rang, and Beverly was saying something -- Deanna pulled her feet up in the chair and hugged her knees, to have a place to put her head. The analgesic hadn’t countered the crazy low level of neurotransmitters. She’d felt this way before.

A hypo touched her neck, and she heard the door again. She waited until the hollow-headed feeling abated. Opening her eyes, she let her legs unfold again, and she noticed that the only person left in the room was Jean-Luc.

“All right?”

“I need sleep. Obviously.”

“You need food, and sleep. We’ll have dinner and an early bedtime.” He touched her shoulder, and she numbly stood up and took a step, and reeled a little. He caught her in an arm and guided her out, down the corridor, into a lift. 

“Do you want to be alone, tonight?”

She couldn’t sense what was going on, at the moment, and heard nothing but concern in his quiet question. “I want -- I’ll be all right.“

“What do you need? What do you want?”

Looking at him was enough -- one glance at his worried eyes and she stepped in, falling against him and clinging like Alexander had clung to her. He held her up, held her close, and when the doors opened he didn’t even attempt to get her to walk out, bent his knees and caught her up to carry her down the corridor. 

She closed her eyes and when she opened them they were in his bathroom, and he sat her on the edge of the tub and started to remove her uniform. She chuckled at it, as he worked her boot off her foot.

“Quite a reversal,” he commented with wry humor. 

“I don’t think I’m as tired as you were, but I’m almost there.” She had been with him through an intense conversation, post-assimilation, the fourth day after he’d been recovered -- after three surgeries and four days of sickbay, he’d demanded to be in his quarters, and yet he still felt like hell on toast. He’d been so determined that he refused all help, until he’d worn himself to almost nothing. He’d sent her away but she sensed the pain he felt when he fell down, returned to his quarters, overrode his lockouts, picked him up off the bathroom floor, and without a word she had let him shout at her while she took off all his clothes and put him in the bath. 

That she had not said a word during the process of undressing him at his weakest point had helped him. No apologies, just doing the job, and leaving him to sit in hot water and start to feel human again. Now, he was actually smiling as he eased off the pants and tossed them aside. She felt at ease, letting him take care of her.

She supposed it would be difficult to explain, how it was that she had gotten here, naked and quite comfortable with the captain bathing her. It would be difficult to convey why, in the days of his recovery from assimilation, she hadn’t gotten a nurse, done something else, rather than tend to her captain personally. But she’d known that would be more stressful for him. She’d wanted him to have people he knew and trusted with him, instead of letting relative strangers see him naked and in pain. It was probably why being incapacitated in sickbay was so difficult for him. Showing weakness angered him.

“Wash your back?”

Deanna looked up at him, her head resting on the edge of the tub. “Anything you like.”

“I’ll be happier and less likely to shout at you now, if you touch me,” he said lightly, running a wash cloth down her arm. 

“Can I have a massage?” 

“Hmm, maybe for dessert.”

His cursory washing took little time. He wasn’t trying to stimulate her at all, as if he knew she was too drained for it. He drained the water first and wrapped her in a towel before helping her stand up and step out onto the floor. 

“Drying hair isn’t something I have any expertise with,” he commented dryly. He rubbed it with the towel gently.

“It’s easy enough. I usually put my head in the sonic shower for a few seconds.”

Once her hair was dry, she found herself being put in bed and tucked in. 

“It’s going to worry him, if I’m not home,” she said, finally recovering enough to think about her responsibilities. 

“We’ll take care of him, and you’re going to be fine.”

Just the sort of thing one said to someone who needed to recover. She accepted it, he kissed her hair and left the room. 

He woke her much later, and brought her a dress. She found herself half-awake at the table in the living room, a plate and cup in front of her. She ate listlessly for a minute, and then Beverly arrived. 

“You’re doing better,” Beverly announced after using her tricorder. “How do you feel?”

“I’d rate it about day eight, post-assimilation,” she said. 

Beverly’s head jerked around as she looked to Jean-Luc in horror. He stood off to the side, arms crossed, and nodded. “How are we feeling?”

“Trying makes my head hurt. That will stop if I sleep all night.”

“Tell me you aren’t still her client,” Jean-Luc said.

“No, I told her I didn’t trust her. I can’t. She’s sending referrals, so I can avoid talking to them, as well. If I get another counselor, it will be private sector.”

“What’s going on?” Beverly asked.

“All we know is that the counselor she was talking to came here on some sort of fact finding mission, per the fleet admiral, and until we get a handle on what it’s really about, I’m only talking to you,” Deanna said. “If they had anything solid it would have been a representative of the JAG. I think it’s watchfulness, not accusation.”

“Well, sure, the fleet admiral doesn’t want the flagship run by some hedonist, right? Taking advantage of his female crew right and left, ignoring red alerts to operate his own personal brothel.”

“Anger brings out the best in you,” Deanna commented, grinning. “It’s like being able to replicate sarcasm.”

Beverly’s eyes went cold and her mouth tightened. “Deanna, it’s not right. Neither one of you would do anything foolish.”

“Yes, Jean-Luc gave up foolish to become a curmudgeon, and I had an operation -- removed any trace of it from my body a long time ago.”

“Now it’s contagious,” Jean-Luc said. “I doubt Nechayev would call me a curmudgeon. That would be like thinking of me as a brother. I think we’re premature assuming anything will happen. Do you think that Dr. Carlson is giving her a negative report?”

“No, I think that we impressed her. I think she was sympathetic, and in the end she acknowledged that it did not seem to her that there was a problem. But that doesn’t mean the admiral won’t do as Lettie did, and assume the worst because everyone knows that relationships between officers in the same chain of command aren’t workable and always end in a court-martial.”

“I love your overwhelming optimism,” Beverly exclaimed. “Okay, I’m going to get Alexander -- he’ll be spending the night with me. You’re getting a black eye, do you want me to do away with it before I bring him in?”

“Sure. As impressed as people would be if I walked around with it, I’d still rather use makeup. How is Wesley?”

“I explained afterward. He was alarmed, but he understood.”

When Beverly was done with the regenerator and gone, Jean-Luc sat at the table facing her. “You didn’t eat enough.”

“Not hungry.”

“If you could go anywhere on leave, where would you go?”

“Anywhere remote. Quiet. You could read to me. Chaucer, if you like.”

Beverly returned with Alexander and the boy ran to her, flinging his arms around her neck. “I’m sorry I hurt you. Can we go home now?”

“I’m going to stay here. The captain is worried about me, so he’s looking out for me. Beverly and Wes took you to the snow? How did it go?”

“I want to stay,” he said, his face falling. “I want to look out for you.”

“You can look out for me when I’m done looking out for you. Trust me?”

He sullenly butted her in the breast with his head trying to hug her again. “Yes.”

“ _Tigryonak_ , I’m fine. It’s all right. I’m going to bed in a few minutes. You should too, it’s hard work, crying.”

Alexander let go, and turned to Jean-Luc, sitting close by. “You’ll take care of her.”

“I take care of everyone, on the _Enterprise_ ,” he said calmly. “Don’t I?”

“But -- “ He nodded, and unexpectedly jumped to hug Jean-Luc. A little bemused, Jean-Luc actually leaned a little, and put an arm over Alexander’s shoulders. “Okay,” the little boy murmured.

Alexander let Beverly take him home, looking back at Deanna mournfully.

“Finish eating.”

Deanna sighed, and prodded a carrot with her fork. “Yes, sir.”

“I still owe you a massage, after all,” he said softly. 

“Hm, I can just lay there and let you do that,” she said with a tired grin. “There’s nothing like strong hands.”

He did indeed know how to massage -- she wondered how he’d come to be so good with his hands, as she fell asleep while he was still kneading the residual tension out of her back muscles.


	21. What's a Little Blackmail Between Friends?

The bridge was quiet, only Natchez lounging around, due to being at the starbase. Deanna went to the observation lounge and found her captain and the fleet admiral present. Clearly, the admiral had been close at hand yesterday, but she’d avoided coming aboard until today -- letting the counselor come in first, to examine the situation.

Nechayev was not someone Deanna had spent extensive time with, but it was easy enough to tell what she was really about. Beneath a calm, composed exterior neatly dressed in an admiral’s uniform was a woman with a calculating, sharp mind. Ruthless. This was the woman who had negotiated the Demilitarized Zone, a controversial thing at best. 

The admiral smiled at her, with the slight movement of the lips and no happiness in the brown eyes that appraised her. “Come have a seat, Commander. I want to congratulate you on your promotion -- quite a feather in your cap, the first counselor to pass the bridge test.”

“Thank you, Admiral,” Deanna said, pouring on the warmth and taking a chair across from her. One of the things about humans -- presenting as a warm, friendly presence would elicit a physiological response from them. She sensed the easing of the admiral’s taut control as she smiled.

“The admiral wanted to meet with you before you left,” Jean-Luc said, with calm detachment. 

“I’m returning to Earth shortly, leaving late today on the _Bellerophon_ ,” the admiral said. “Before I do, I wanted to thank you personally, for being a part of this mission. It’s critical that we obtain the intelligence that Lieutenant Ro has collected. Lives depend on it. It may prevent a full military conflict.”

“Something that I am in full support of, preventing violence,” Deanna said. 

“Have you examined the information gathered so far?”

Deanna nodded, as she refocused so as to be aware of the admiral’s responses. “I have. Ro was accepted into a cell based out of Mendhel Two, fairly quickly, due to her past difficulties with Starfleet. She accumulated quite a lot of information and prevented a raid. From what I know of her, I would assume the loss of contact to mean that something happened and it’s unsafe for her to approach anyone outside the Maquis at this time.”

“I trust that you will also be gathering any information you may run across, while you are out there. The colonies in the Demilitarized Zone that have refused to evacuate may not all be Maquis, but many support them.” The admiral studied her for a moment. “I know that you have been undercover before, but that it was not entirely voluntary. How do you feel about this mission?”

“I took an oath to keep the peace if at all possible. I view this as an opportunity to do that. And to help a crewmate -- if I can.”

The cynical doubt in the admiral was interesting, as was the amusement. The admiral had some disdain for her, but it was obvious that the admiral had practiced some of the techniques known to interfere with telepathic contact. Fortunate that Deanna wasn’t precisely telepathic and empathy was different. 

Nechayev’s tight smile came back. “I want to apologize to both of you,” she said, very quietly, her head turning slightly to the right as she included the captain. “I regret that you were inconvenienced -- I did not intend to disrupt things.”

Deanna’s smile broadened -- what an interesting thing to happen. She wondered what Lettie had told the admiral, exactly. “It’s part of my duty, to assess and intervene when crew members have difficulty with managing relationships aboard the _Enterprise_. It’s difficult enough to identify such situations before they become problematic, on a single vessel. I understand the need to be vigilant in these matters.”

The empathic response was exactly what the admiral wanted -- finally, the smile was more than a mask she put on. “I’m glad to hear that it did not cause a breach of trust.”

“I didn’t say that,” Deanna said. “I speak only for myself.”

That sent the admiral’s gaze to Jean-Luc, who was as upright and stiff as Deanna wasn’t. He simply stared at her with no visible emotion.

“Surely you can appreciate how -- shocking it was, to hear -- you are the captain of the flagship of the Federation,” Nechayev exclaimed. Already defensive, though she had it well under control.

“One would suppose that years of committed service could not be wiped out of memory, with the first rumor that comes along,” Jean-Luc said quietly. 

“Even an admiral can react out of impulse, apparently, so it’s certainly possible for a captain -- so I would assume that initial supposition was not entirely a reflection of what’s expected of you, Captain.” More warmth padded her words, making them more like a tease than a confrontation of the admiral.

Nechayev eyed her suspiciously. At least it was an honest reflection of her emotions, now. “You are hinting that it was not an impulsive thing.”

“Nothing I do is on impulse. Not while I’m on this ship. The same could be said for the captain. I would go so far as to put forth that we are the least likely people to show impulsive behavior, out of the thousand people currently assigned to the _Enterprise_. Including Mr. Data.” 

A tone interrupted them. “Picard to the bridge.”

“My apologies, Admiral, I’ll be right back.” Jean-Luc left the briefing room. Deanna watched the door close behind him. The admiral acted as if nothing had happened.

“Is that your professional assessment?”

“You don’t care about my professional assessment, otherwise you would not have taken advantage of the opportunity to send a spy.”

The admiral’s head snapped back slightly. The minimal venom in Deanna’s response had shocked her. “Commander!”

“You’re right, Admiral,” Deanna said. “My apologies.”

Nechayev went tight-lipped, minus the smile. “You are, of course, one of our most experienced counselors -- a valued member of Starfleet. I don’t doubt that if anyone is capable of maintaining complex boundaries necessary for such a dual relationship as you are apparently managing, it would be you. I expect discretion.” 

“Of course, Admiral.” The admiral calmed, with the reassurance. But tensed again as Deanna continued. “It wouldn’t do, for the rest of the fleet to know.”

The admiral was standing up when she said it -- now Nechayev stared down at her in complete disbelief. 

“How is Ben?” Deanna gazed coolly into the angry brown eyes as they narrowed, then went wide again. 

“Good luck on your mission, Commander,” the admiral said with the practiced, professional concern of a flag officer supporting her subordinates. “I trust that you will return unscathed and successful.” With a minute smile for the captain, the diminutive woman turned and strode from the room.

Deanna thought about the time they had all gone out in San Francisco, and she had wandered away from the bar for a bit to get some air and a moment of peace in the moonlight. People were walking back and forth along the Embarcadero. She had happened to notice a couple on the balcony of one of the nicer restaurants, and had been shocked to see the admiral in a shimmering dress, with a man she’d recognized as one of the fleet’s veteran starship captains, and their emotions had been unmistakeable. She’d turned and strolled back to her friends in the bar, and tucked the memory away to never mention it to anyone.

“Hypocrite,” she muttered. The admiral would be spending her trip back to Earth on the _Bellerophon_ , likely in her quarters the whole way. Or the captain’s. 

Jean-Luc returned, raised an eyebrow at her, and crossed his arms. “What happened?”

“I think she was upset.” Panicked was a better word. But downplaying emotions she sensed was a habit.

“The admiral was obviously in a great hurry -- Nechayev does not tend to go to warp eight without a reason.”

He clearly wasn’t going to let it go, so she sighed heavily and stood up. “She sent a spy, to check on us. She’s a hypocrite, prying into our personal lives with no reason.”

“So, you informed her of that, and she bolted?”

“Do you know if Captain Holloway is married?”

“What does that have to do with -- “ He stared at her open-mouthed, and took a step closer, suspicion rising and narrowing his eyes. “What did you do?”

“I asked her to leave us alone, unless she has a valid concern.”

“You’re saying -- “ He put both hands on his head in a gesture she’d never seen him make. “My god.”

“Jean-Luc?”

“It’s difficult, discovering you’ve been sleeping with someone capable of bringing down the Federation around your ears.” He dropped his hands and propped them on his hips. “God. I thought Ben had better taste!”

“I didn’t realize you knew the captain of the _Bellerophon_ that well.” And then what he said sunk in, and she started to feel like a complete ass.

“I’m actually going to see him in an hour, before he leaves.” He gazed at her with a bit more seriousness than had been his habit lately.

“I’m sorry. I hope you don’t think I make a habit of this.” She looked away at the floor, at nothing really. “I wanted her to stop prying -- I didn’t think about the fact that it could be considered blackmail.”

“It’s not ideal,” he said. “But, Nechayev did start that little war. I was going to address it after dismissing you. Please talk to me before you do anything like that again?”

“I didn’t plan to do it in the first place. I suppose I proved that I’m more impulsive than I think.” She put her hands to her cheeks, embarrassed -- it wouldn’t make any sense for the admiral to retaliate, but it wasn’t prudent to anger her. 

“Deanna, it’s done. I don’t think there will be any real ramifications, she didn’t make a real accusation. I think it was a warning. She wanted to make certain that we knew she was aware, that’s all.”

“If you say so.”

“You know… if you’re right…. You should come with me. Have a drink with Ben and then we can go our own way. Have a nice meal without a stressful conversation.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?”

“It would underline the message nicely. Make her aware that I know what you did, and I’m aware of what she’s doing. I’m tied to this anyway, now. What would she do? Nothing. You wouldn’t actually use the information against her, would you?”

“No. I don’t think I would even know how to go about that. Are you sure it won’t cause you any problems? I could go apologize to -- “

“Deanna, once she calms down she’ll realize nothing is going to change any time soon. I’ll probably talk to her before she leaves the starbase. Smooth things over. How long have you been sitting on that piece of information, anyway?”

“Oh, more than a year. Not that she knows that.” She tried to calm herself down. It wasn’t good to start having a panic attack. “She actually complimented me,” Deanna murmured, thinking about it more. “She told me that if anyone could manage it, I could. But underneath it she was angry, and I just -- threw it out there.”

“If I told you how many times I wanted to tell her off, would it make you feel better?”

“It wasn’t even what Lettie wanted to do,” Deanna exclaimed. “She was only following orders. I don’t think she violated confidentiality -- someone had to tell the admiral, for her to go to the trouble of finding Lettie and giving the order. I don’t think it was anyone on board. It had to be Shelby.”

“Why do you think Shelby knew anything? Five minutes in the ready room with you in a briefing wouldn’t be enough to suspect.”

Deanna rolled her eyes. “She might have noticed the way you were looking at me.”

“How was I looking at you?”

“Never mind. Am I going in uniform?”

“Hell, no. Do you still have the dress you wore at the resort?”

She frowned at him. “On a starbase?”

“Yes,” he exclaimed, grinning. This was the not-often-seen boyish Captain Picard, enjoying himself. Although, given the change in the nature of their relationship, she might be seeing more of him. “With about half an inverse Picard, I think.”

Deanna couldn’t help a smile. He wasn’t angry at her slip-up, and now he was up to mischief. “I’m going to trust that you know what you’re doing, then. So I’ll see you in transporter room two?”

“In half an hour. We’ll get there a little early.”

“So what was so important that they paged you?” She turned for the door, thinking about whether she had hung the dress or left it in the bag she’d used on the trip. 

“When another captain or higher ranked officer calls, I get a page. It wasn’t anything very important.”

She stopped before the door opened, and glanced back at him. There wasn’t a question, given how he felt. “It was Will.”

“I wasn’t going to mention it, until later. If not tomorrow.”

“Because he wasn’t happy, and he was asking who it was I managed to bond with? Did you tell him?”

He came up to stand at her shoulder, and kissed her hair. “It wasn’t pleasant, but after all he’s done to you, I preferred to keep him from causing you any more pain.”

She couldn’t help turning to throw her arms around him -- after only a few tears, she composed herself and smiled, touching his cheek. “Thank you.”

“You can thank me by coming and having a good time.”

“Okay.”

She left the bridge, and him, behind. In her bedroom she found the dress, hanging where it should have been in the closet, and pulled the braid out of her hair. When Beverly showed up at the door she called out, “In here.”

Beverly came into the bedroom and whistled low. “Where are you off to? The holodeck?”

“I’m not sure, actually, but some bar. We’re supposed to meet a friend of his.”

“I bet it’s Holloway,” Beverly said. “He’s going to show you off, you know.”

She started brushing out her hair as she paced barefoot around the room. “That doesn’t sound like him.”

Beverly shrugged. “Ben is one of the few of the old crowd he still talks to. One of Jack’s friends, originally. Just don’t be surprised if he’s a little different for a while. I came to check on you, but if you’re going out for the afternoon you must be fine.”

“Still feeling a bit numb-headed, but otherwise I’m much better. We should be back after dinner.”

“I’ll have Wesley pick up Alexander from school. He can babysit until you get home, and if he runs into any trouble he’ll have all of us to back him up.”

“I have the feeling Wes may become the ship’s babysitter.”

“He’s great with the kids. As long as it keeps him busy, while he searches his soul for what to do with his life.”

Deanna sat in front of her mirror, and started to work her hair into a clip on the top of her head. “You’ve met Captain Holloway?”

“Not often. He’s a good officer, so far as I know.”

“I suppose I’ll find out. Have you taken any time off?”

“Tomorrow. I’m going to the spa on the starbase.”

“I hope you have fun. I’m probably going to be meeting with the other counselors, to get them ready for the time I’ll be gone -- however long that is.”

Beverly smiled sadly. “He’s going to be grumpy the entire time you’re gone.”

“Maybe next mission, someone will volunteer in my place, then. Spare everyone.” Deanna picked up some long black dangling earrings and put them on. 

“DIdn’t you have more jewelry than that, before?”

“I did a little housecleaning. Got rid of a lot of things I never wore any more.”

“If you’re giving things away….”

Deanna plucked the ruby earrings out and held them up for Beverly to take. The doctor had admired them on several occasions, borrowed them once. “There you go.”

“Lovely.”

“Do you have a date?” It would explain the spa. Beverly usually invested herself in work with almost the same devotion as their captain.

“I’ll let you know. I might.” Beverly strode out with her lab coat billowing. 

Deanna found some boots that worked with the dress, with moderately high heels, and considered the matter of a necklace. Jet black chains, she decided. 

She emerged from the bedroom and hesitated, thinking, and then turned to survey the weapons she’d put up on the wall. She had arranged all of Worf’s weapons in a crescent on the main wall of the room. She considered all the trouble she’d seen Jean-Luc get into, and decided that the smallest of the daggers would fit in the cuff of one of her boots. 

When she reached transporter room two he was already there. Looking very much the civilian, with an open brown jacket over a light colored shirt and dark brown slacks. He smiled at her, and she decided the empty transporter room was a better idea than having the chief there -- though their transporter chief, like most, maintained a high level of discretion.

“Hello, beautiful,” he murmured.

“You’re sure you want me to go. I wouldn’t want to impose myself on some secret ritual of starship captains ”

He grinned and shook his head. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“It’s there… it’s just a little shy of following blindly where angels fear to tread.”

His good humor waned, and he sighed, turning from the console where he’d been about to set up their transport to the starbase. “There aren’t that many ships here, at the moment. Ben’s probably the only one there, unless Shelby is somehow loosening up a little and getting a drink with him. I doubt that. She doesn’t tend to, or so I’m told.”

Deanna nodded, but she must be losing her ability to keep her face straight -- or, perhaps, things were now tipped in his favor and she was projecting more than she expected. He caught her by the shoulder as she tried to head for the transporter pad. 

“What are you nervous about?”

“Is this someone you know well? I’ve met Captain Holloway one time. I don’t know him.”

He didn’t react overtly, but that was his way. Usually it wasn’t obvious how he felt. She closed her eyes, but knew that despite his reaction he wouldn’t want her to lie, or do something she didn’t want to do.

“He’s the fleet admiral’s lover and I’ve already sent her into panic today. I’m not sure this is a good idea. You probably know both of them better than I do, I should trust you, but it doesn’t feel right to me.”

He nodded, and understood. “He’s an old friend, Deanna. I know it’s startling to think he’s involved with her, but there’s been nothing to suggest that he’s letting it influence his relationship with me. I thought you might enjoy meeting some of my old friends.”

Since it was the truth, she smiled and went with him. She still thought about what Beverly had said, but walked with him from the transporter toward the starbase’s version of Ten Forward. In keeping with the naming convention of lounges on Starfleet ships and starbases after their location, it was called Six Starboard. The lunch rush hadn’t started -- the substantial space with vaulted ceilings and broad viewports providing a view of the stars and orbiting starships was almost empty. But instead of taking a booth, Jean-Luc bore left, and went to a door marked ‘private.’

Deanna had seen a door like that in other lounges, on other starbases, and assumed it to be something for employees. However, this revised her assumption, as his palm on the panel opened the door. He stood back and let her through first. The much-smaller room on the other side was another world -- whites, golds, a few paintings on the walls, no viewport. It was also empty of people. He seated her at a table and sat in the chair next to her. 

“You want something to drink?”

“Wine. Maybe a white?” She glanced at the bland seascape on the wall behind his head. “Is this one of the best kept secrets of Starfleet? I’ve never heard of a secret captain’s lounge.”

“If you had would it be a secret?”

A door at the far end of the room opened, and a young man approached. “May I get you anything, Captain?”

“A glass of porter and a chardonnay,” Jean-Luc said. The waiter nodded and went back the way he’d come. Jean-Luc glanced down and touched her thigh. “The tattoo, what is it?”

“It’s an old symbol, in a Betazoid dialect that isn’t used any more. It means freedom.”

Jean-Luc’s eyes flicked up from the tattoo. She’d startled him. “That begs the question of what kind of freedom it memorializes?”

She thought about getting the tattoo, in San Francisco, after drawing the symbol for the technician who’d put it there. “From the past. From myself, in a way. From the expectations of people who think they understand enough about me, that they can tell me what I should be.”

That sent him into a sober sort of contemplation, that he set aside with a fond smile. “There is a long story?”

“Not really. I’ll tell you sometime, if you’re good.” She smiled and leaned to kiss him lightly. 

And the door opened, and Jean-Luc leaned back from the kiss and grinned. “Ben,” he exclaimed, rising to step around her and hold out a hand.

Ben Holloway was tall, with salt-and-pepper hair that might have been black at some point in the past. He had it cut short, parted on the left, and he wore slacks and a dark shirt. He greeted Jean-Luc in a slightly-hoarse baritone. His dark brown eyes landed on her, and his expression shifted, from being happy to see an old friend to sly and appreciative.

“Well,” he said, taking a step toward the table. “They’re showing better taste in who they promote these days.”

“I believe you’ve met the commander once before?” Jean-Luc asked with a hint of reproach.

It caught him off guard. “Commander?”

“Deanna Troi. She’s my ship’s counselor. Among other things.” More reproach -- a warning, but a good-natured one.

Holloway raised an eyebrow. “All right, sorry. Clearly my memory isn’t what it should be -- I’m sure I would have remembered you otherwise. A pleasure to meet you, Commander.”

“I’m hardly dressed for being called out by rank,” she said with a smile that she knew would invite him to set that aside. “It’s a pleasure to meet you again.”

Jean-Luc sat again on her left, and his hand casually came to rest on her thigh, his thumb on her tattoo. “Be sure you look out for this one,” he said in her ear. She could hear the smirk in his voice. “He can’t resist a beautiful woman.”

“Now, now,” Holloway chided. “No need for treating me like I’m still twenty-five.”

“I suppose that’s true -- I’m not what I was then, either.”

Deanna watched the waiter approaching instead of looking at either of them while the initial back-and-forth played out. She could tell Jean-Luc was being quite intentional -- perhaps she had nothing to worry about. He’d adroitly informed his friend that she was off limits while sounding casual and good-natured about it.

“You’ve been hiding things from me, Jean-Luc,” Holloway exclaimed. “From a lot of people.”

“And you have no secrets,” Jean-Luc said with a scolding but humorous tone. “Actually, there hasn’t been anything to hide -- not until recently, and I’m obviously not hiding it very well, as you can tell.”

Holloway felt a spike of emotion as Jean-Luc chided him -- Deanna continued to smile, happily thanking the waiter for her glass of wine, watching him put a pint in front of Jean-Luc. Holloway ordered a lager and watched the waiter leave. 

Rather than wait for a response, Jean-Luc moved on. “So how’ve you been? I saw that the _Bellerophon_ had a confrontation in the Demilitarized Zone last month.”

“You wouldn’t believe the things the Maquis are -- “ Holloway stared at Deanna, proving he wasn’t complacent or stupid.

“She’s fine, she has clearance. I’m sending her undercover to Mendhel Two in a few days, in fact.”

Now Holloway gaped at her briefly. He shook himself out of it and gave Jean-Luc a dubious look. “Sending her undercover,” he echoed. 

“Not for the first time.” He was managing a fine balance between regret and pride, and turned to smile at her. “The problem with strong-willed, intelligent women, they make such fine officers.”

“Just the women?” she asked, swinging her glass so the wine swirled gently. Playing counterpoint to whatever he was doing was starting to feel like a good idea.

“Certainly not. Generally, I find assigning people to dangerous tasks to be frustrating -- I’d rather keep good officers, than watch them suffer or die in the line of duty. I’d rather not have to send you anywhere, either,” he said. His soft tone surprised her. This wasn’t what she would expect him to do in any public or semi-public setting.

Holloway didn’t look at them -- he had a fond little smile as he looked down at the floor. He’d clearly never seen his friend do anything like that before. There was a little amazement and sympathy.

Deanna looked Jean-Luc in the eye, and gave him an intense look and a head tilt -- he lowered his head slightly and returned the look. 

“But if I’m the right officer for the mission,” she responded, with a lighter, offhanded tone.

“You are -- probably the only one who could pull it off. So you’ll just have to promise me you’ll come back.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said, sipping wine and giving him a flirt of the eyebrows. “It’s a big universe, I may be able to find someone with better hands.”

Holloway laughed at it immediately, and Jean-Luc didn’t do anything he might have done elsewhere -- no blustering or attempts to change the subject. He gave her a mock-scowl and smiled as if mildly embarrassed, but, she noticed, he didn’t feel embarrassed at all. 

The waiter returned with Holloway’s order, and Jean-Luc turned the conversation to talk of the treaty with the Cardassians and the Maquis. It startled her to find that Holloway questioned the wisdom of the particulars of the treaty. He sounded concerned about the people who had left the Federation to stay on their colonies within the zone, and he was worried about a few officers he knew personally who had joined the Maquis. The two captains bemoaned the circumstances that had brought this situation into being, as Holloway took a sip and Jean-Luc drained what was left of his beer. And then Jean-Luc put the empty pint glass in front of him and turned to Deanna, sitting mostly quiet with her empty wine glass in front of her. 

“I’m sorry, this wasn’t quite the conversation I anticipated.”

She shrugged. “I thought you were going to drink and reminisce -- though that would be more entertaining, I suppose everyone’s worried about the current state of affairs. I know I am.”

Jean-Luc glanced across the room at a clock on the far wall -- he rose from his chair. “We’re late. I’m sorry, Ben, I made a reservation -- I promised her a decent dinner before she leaves.”

Holloway held up his hands. “No worries. Have a wonderful time. Nice to see you again, Deanna.”

They left the other captain sitting in the lounge and Deanna followed Jean-Luc out of Six Starboard, down the concourse toward a long string of restaurants.

“The only thing you lied about was the reservation,” she said quietly.

“I’m not going to spend all my time with him, when I can enjoy it more with you,” he murmured. 

“I’m impressed.”

Jean-Luc turned from scrutinizing a menu posted outside the Thai restaurant. “With Holloway?”

“You probably know he’s going to tell the admiral you’re not at all the kind of coward who hides his lover from the rest of the galaxy.”

He put his arm around her, chuckled, and nodded at the menu. “I understand you like a good curry?”

“I’ve always liked Thai. It reminds me of some Betazoid dishes.” She leaned in, enjoying the weight of his hand on her hip. “Curry on.”

“Oh, bloody hell,” he muttered, grinning, leading her into the restaurant.


	22. Preparations

Deanna managed to wake up before he did, this time, and thought that it had to do with being so close to each other -- he’d followed her to bed after they had spent the evening with Alexander, being as normal as they could be, despite his overall sullenness. He and Jean-Luc had built another model, this time a Klingon warbird that would require more work than they could manage in a single night. 

And Jean-Luc then made certain she wasn’t thinking at all, for quite a while -- once the bedroom door closed behind them he’d demanded her attention with his lips, his hands, his mouth, making sure she knew how very interested he was in that part of the relationship. His enthusiasm was, of course, contagious. What a quick study -- he had her so completely enthralled that she had lain there for nearly an hour after he had gone to sleep, her nerves still jumping and her heart still full.

He’d awakened her by moving in his sleep, just a little, dislodging her arm. She had somehow fallen asleep with him sprawled half across her. Tucking her arm around his shoulder had been the alternative to letting it fall off the edge of the bed to dangle. Deanna tried to extricate herself without waking him, but knew that she had failed before she returned from the bathroom.

So she stepped over the pile of discarded sheet and blanket, crawled up on the bed, and came down on top of him, kissing away the happy smile he was wearing as he put his arms around her. The hum of synchronicity between them was markedly noticeable. She knew it would be stronger yet in the future, but not how much -- she’d never let it develop with anyone else. Except Will, and that was too long ago and not so deliberate as it was exciting happenstance. She tended to look back at her younger self with two parts anger, and one part wistful regret. 

Jean-Luc wrestled her over on her back. He must have done something. He’d had more stamina and less anxiety, last night. She started to laugh, disrupting his determination to kiss her.

“Something amusing you?” he mumbled.

“What did you do to yourself? Where did this come from?” She rolled her hip up against his, catching his hard penis against her pelvis. 

“Oh, modern medicine has taken care of so many things I hadn’t bothered to think about.” He chuckled and his hand found its way to her thigh, pushing until she moved it up and away, tucking her heel around his leg while he started to probe with his fingers. 

He was more than happy to set every nerve in her body tingling, and while he didn’t have quite the longevity he’d had eight hours ago he ended up being pleased with himself. She worked him over on his back again, before he finished, and kept him very happy with her acute awareness of what every move she made did to him, which led to doing more. 

Of course, all good things had to end, and being in a sweaty tangle afterward had its own pleasures -- in the aftermath of such intensity she felt positively buoyant, and it was a shared experience. He laughed quietly while she pushed her chin against his shoulder and tickled along his ribs. 

“I’m tempted to tie you to my bed, for the next three days,” he mumbled, finally grabbing her fingers.

“I’m tempted to let you. That would be a very awkward thing to explain to people, though. ‘I’m sorry I missed your appointment, I was tied to the captain’s bed all week.’”

He chuckled again. “Trite as it is, I have to say that I’m really looking forward to the rest of my life.”

“Mmmmm, I’ll stick with the now, and leave the rest to itself.”

“It feels more intense, now. Is that the same for you?” His hand rested comfortably over her right buttock. 

“Yes. It’s -- wonderful.”

Jean-Luc was satisfied with that -- so much so that he set up an echoing feeling of pleasure that she experienced as strongly as he did. “This is going to be the way it is?”

“I’m not sure. I think it will intensify, and become more… constant. Ongoing.”

“Really? So I’ll be in contact with you all the time, this way,” he said dubiously.

“Not exactly this way all the time. But in some way. It’s hard to say…. I’ve never really done this before. It’s different.”

“Different?”

“I think it’s different because I knew it would happen, and… wanted it, really, because I’m actually feeling quite confident about a future with you.”

That made him happy all over again, after the hint at what she’d had with Will started to feel like a comparison and led him to think about it that way. Jean-Luc’s face wasn’t in her line of sight, since she was sprawled across him, but she could tell he must be grinning. 

“I should get up,” she said after a few more minutes of laying there with him in comfortable contact. “It’s almost time anyway. I’m spending the day getting coverage for clients and preparing to focus on the mission.”

“All right.”

It was, she reflected in the shower, the antithesis to what she’d had with Will. Rather than feel so possessive, Jean-Luc would feel pride, or the sort of happiness one would have when seeing a loved one succeed. She hadn’t sensed jealousy from him yet. He tolerated Alexander’s presence in her life and felt the same obligation to see to his welfare, instead of hoping the boy would be gone soon. 

It was starting to feel normal, actually. Deanna got out and turned to the towel rack to find him there offering her one of the towels, with a fond kiss as he took her place in the stall. After they were both in uniform, she smiled at him -- soft echoes of desire and love reverberated between them -- and as one they headed into the living room. 

Breakfast was out on the table by the time Alexander came out -- he was still a bit grumpy but ate breakfast and talked to them about school, affirming he was ready and his project was done. When he returned from his room with the model of a Bajoran Temple, Jean-Luc admired it as if it were perfectly done, and the symbols on the front weren’t lopsided and the edges of the fiberboard weren’t sawed unevenly. 

And then he walked with them to school. Alexander gave him a look, as they left the lift, and he smiled at the boy. “I may as well get used to it, since we’re doing without her for a while,” he said, as if it were no problem at all for her to disappear for weeks.

Alexander’s wavering smile made her want to cry -- it was all she could do not to, and she managed a kiss on his forehead at the classroom door. When they were heading away down the corridor again, she put a hand to her mouth and looked at him with tears blurring her vision.

“We’ll be fine,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. It fell off again, as the turbolift door opened, and they joined two of the crew inside. 

She left on deck two, and he went on in the lift. In her office, she thought about everything -- her two assistants would be there in about twenty minutes. But before she prepared for that, before she could have second thoughts, she asked the computer to open a subspace channel to Admiral Nechayev.

It wasn’t something she’d discussed with Jean-Luc. But she had been thinking about the conversation with the admiral, and knew that it wasn’t going to help the mission to leave it unresolved. 

To her surprise, the admiral appeared on her monitor, about five minutes after she asked for an open channel. “Hello, Commander,” she said stiffly. “I’m surprised to hear from you.”

“Admiral, I wanted to talk to you before I depart -- to apologize, for what I said in our meeting yesterday. As I am not certain that I will be able to do so in the future. I did not intend what you likely inferred from it. I merely reacted to your anger by becoming angry.” She paused, collecting herself before she started to babble anxiously. “I appreciate your confidence in me, that I am able to complete such an important mission, and I assure you that other matters that are… not my business, will remain so.”

Nechayev stared at her for nearly a full minute. It felt like an eternity. She had the distinct impression that she had shocked her, though her expression changed little. 

Then, without so much as a blink, the admiral seemed to soften and a ghost of a smile touched her lips. “Thank you.”

Deanna gave a very slight nod. 

“Ben was quite impressed with you,” Nechayev went on, almost conversationally, stunning her to stone. “He told me that Jean-Luc would not have even considered it, with someone he couldn’t trust absolutely. I found that somewhat reassuring. Ben knows him much better than I do. I’ll trust, then, that we are agreed, that unless there is cause for concern on the professional front, these matters are settled.”

“Yes,” Deanna said, with practiced calm. Somewhere behind her navel, something started to quiver. 

“Again, good luck on the mission -- I expect you will see me afterward, for debriefing, over subspace at the very least.”

“Thank you, Admiral.”

The screen blanked and went to the UFP logo, and Deanna exhaled noisily, letting her head fall forward on her hands on the desk. She breathed slowly, to quiet her nervous stomach and compose herself for the meeting. Which she did, mostly. She even smiled thinking how badly the conversation with the admiral might have ended -- Jean-Luc had often chafed at how he’d struggled with Nechayev over the years.

Sarah and Mike were smiling as they came in and sat across her desk. “Let’s go, boss,” Mike exclaimed.

Deanna smiled at his very old joke -- he’d said that every monthly meeting for four years. “I have good news and bad news. I’ve been able to terminate with six of my current clients. Unfortunately, that leaves ten more to divide between you.”

It didn’t take long to do. Mike shoehorned six into his schedule, and Sarah took the other four. And both of them stood up, half an hour later, but Sarah lingered, watching Mike leave, then sat down again.

“Something wrong, Sarah?”

The younger counselor gave her an apologetic look, her wide brown eyes sympathetic. “I hate to do this.”

“Oh, Sarah,” she exclaimed with a sigh. “What happened?”

“I just don’t think I’m doing him any good,” she said sadly. “I think he’s holding back because I’m just too -- something. Young, inexperienced, I’m not sure what.”

“He might be talking around mentioning me. He knows it’s a conflict for you, that it’s difficult because I’m your supervisor.”

Sarah shook her head. “I get the feeling he’s being patient with me.”

“So talk to him about that. He’s not going to snap at you. I’d snap at him, if he did, and I’m not saying that as anything but an officer. He still has to deal with Counselor Troi if he isn’t complying with the expectations of Starfleet.”

Sarah looked anguished. She shook her head slowly. 

“I know you, Sarah. I know you handled Garrison from security -- and he’s not easy. No real ability to access let alone talk about emotions. I know you did well enough with him. The captain isn’t what he was, before, I know he isn’t. He made the switch voluntarily.”

“I can’t -- “

“Sarah,” Deanna said when she couldn’t continue. “You can tell me about this. I’m still your supervisor.”

“It’s just really hard to ask -- I know what I should say, it’s just so hard -- when he smiles.”

How impossible this was -- sensing all that embarrassment and squirming humiliation that Sarah was trying to control, and on top of it realizing she’d created a monster. Deanna wanted to stay calm, not laugh, or really react. 

“He reminds me of my dad,” Sarah added.

“Oh,” Deanna sighed. “Well. That’s not good. I’ll -- Come in,” she called when the annunciator went off. 

What was that saying, speak of the devil? Jean-Luc almost backed out again, upon seeing the back of Sarah’s head. 

“Captain,” Deanna said, pointing at the empty chair.

“Oh, there’s that tone,” he said, reversing course. “What did I do now?”

“Sarah was informing me that she’s thinking it might be better for you to have a different counselor.”

It surprised him. “Was it something I said?”

Sarah laughed nervously at it. “Not exactly, sir.”

“What I’m wondering is whether you are intimidating, or whether she is intimidated,” Deanna said in a mild, curious tone. She thought she knew already. And Sarah almost cringed away from him -- it was just a slight flinch and a hint of a lean, but there it was. For his part, he just glanced at her and felt concerned, perhaps even a shred of affection for her. And Deanna wondered if the thought of taking on the notoriously stubborn Captain Picard had been planted in her head by someone at Starfleet Medical -- but Deanna had hoped Sarah could develop a rapport once she’d started to talk to the captain in person. 

“I haven’t had any complaints. I would have said something to her before now,” he told Deanna. “I haven’t been nearly so difficult as I was in the beginning.”

“How old was Meribor, the last time you saw her?”

It flew in out of nowhere, and Sarah had no context, but it impacted him -- he slumped back in the chair and covered his eyes with his palms. “Well, there we are. Damn it.”

“Meribor?” Sarah asked.

“His adult daughter, who has brown eyes and blond hair,” Deanna said. “I’m thinking he has confirmed you’re about the same age. Countertransference and transference can be worked with, if you’re inclined, but it may be best in the long run to find a counselor for him to talk to via subspace.”

Sarah’s immediate relief told her it was a good choice. “Thank you, Commander. I’m sorry, Captain.”

“No, I’m sorry, Counselor -- it wasn’t your fault.”

“Thank you, Sarah. I’ll see you in a few weeks.”

After the door closed again, he rested both hands on his head and continued to slump. “You called the admiral.”

“I didn’t intend to give her the impression she likely had, and I wanted that to be clear to her.”

He gazed at her in a way that could have been unsettling. But he felt -- awe. 

“Captain?”

“You called the admiral and apologized, and she called me, and apologized.”

“It was a personal matter, Captain.”

He held up a hand briefly to halt the protest. “No, I realize why you did it. I’m just startled by her reaction. In six years, I have had a strained relationship with the woman, and in one conversation you put her in a mood to apologize to me. I’m just acknowledging the accomplishment.”

Deanna moaned, let her head fall back against her chair, and smiled ruefully. “All I did was tell her I wasn’t threatening her. It was true, and it’s honest.”

“Well, I have to say it worked wonders -- if you’d done anything to intentionally gain her trust, I doubt you’d find anything to work as well as just apologizing. I thought about it, and I’d guess she’s been hammered for every controversial decision she’s made -- especially the deal with the Cardassians. Even Ben disagrees with that.” He smiled at her knowingly. “I think you may be the only one who’s thought to try a little empathy, and you did it without an ulterior motive. She probably appreciated that the most.”

“Jean-Luc… it doesn’t change anything. She’s a cold, calculating politician with no real remorse when people die due to decisions she makes. I’m sure she appreciated that I apologized, because it told her that I’m a simple, straightforward and honest peon who represents no real risk to her career. If she wants to underestimate me that way, let her. I merely didn’t want her to be angry at either of us.”

His mouth dropped open for a few seconds. He laughed, actually slapping his thigh, and didn’t stop for a minute. “Deanna, my god, what you do -- I did say you could bring down the Federation around my ears, and here you go confirming it. We could be a force to be reckoned with, you know?”

“I’m sure that’s true, in some mirror universe. Did she tell you anything else?”

He calmed, and it confirmed that Nechayev had. And he knew that she could tell, and said nothing.

“If there’s nothing else, Captain.”

He responded by leaving, but she’d startled him with the dismissal. It gave her a tug of the heart to do it -- she didn’t like doing it. But she had too much to do today, and being distracted by protracted conversation with him wouldn’t help. 

She worked through lunch finishing some notes, and turned to researching Mendhel Two and the surrounding inhabitable worlds. There was a lot of general information, not a lot of specific. Around fourteen hundred Mike McCormick showed up on schedule.

“You’re going to be okay with this?” he asked after she explained her plan. 

“Are you?”

Mike grinned -- he looked nothing like Will, but the grin reminded her of him. His squared jaw and clean face, his dark blue eyes, his short-cropped brown hair, and his trim, well-muscled physique had earned him a lot of attention since he came aboard a year ago. She knew him passingly well, as he’d been one of Worf’s frequent choices for away missions. 

“I’m not sure I’m going to be a convincing pimp.”

“I’ve been thinking about that. It might be easier to manage a less specific role -- wait until we get there and see what establishments are like. There’s nothing in my research that says they have no entertainment.”

“You want to sing? Dance?”

“Given the run-down and impoverished state of some of the establishments, they might not have such high standards that I would be out of place. Want to go to the holodeck and rehearse?”

They left her office, and Mike continued to feel as he had -- uneasy, in a way she thought might make things more difficult. It wasn’t something he’d experienced around her before. He’d been to the couple of senior staff poker games they’d had, since his promotion following Worf’s death.

“Do you have a bad feeling about the mission?” she asked as the immense doors of holodeck four opened for them.

“What do you mean?”

She hadn’t educated Mike about the acuity of her empathy, and she had the feeling they would be relying on it a lot, so no time like the present. “I can sense your discomfort. It’s not something I sensed from you before.”

“Sensed? I thought Betazoids… You know, I had a Betazoid roommate at the Academy. I don’t think I ever heard him say anything about what he sensed.”

“He likely wasn’t an empath. Not all of us are. Empathy is different, for me. I have a hard time blocking out emotions of others, so most of the time I ignore what I sense.” Deanna stopped walking and turned to face her companion. “Since I’m going to be relying on it heavily throughout the mission to keep us out of trouble, I thought I should let you know about it. And I’m still curious about why you’re uncomfortable. I consider you a friend, too, and I wouldn’t want to cause you discomfort.”

Mike crossed his arms -- a visible representation of the sudden anxiety he felt.

Deanna knew her mild frustration showed in her face. “Michael McCormick. I ignore most of what I sense. Think about it.”

He started to smile -- a nervous chuckle was the end result of a few minutes of thought. “Yeah. I guess you’d have to be patient, with a bunch of us around -- can’t help it, can we? But -- you won’t tell the captain, right?”

“Believe it or not, he’s fairly typical of human males everywhere. Just a little older. I think he’s got a fair idea that most of you are the same, in some respects. But he expects professional conduct.”

“Well… I’m thinking he’s not just someone you’re ignoring,” Mike said faintly. “I wouldn’t want any misunderstandings.”

“And because I’m supposed to be wandering around out of uniform in your presence, you think he’ll guess there would be something untoward going on between us?”

He snorted. “It’s….”

“Irrational. You’ll only get somewhere if I were inclined to let you. And that’s only if you try. Computer, is there a program featuring any bar or gambling establishment on Mendhel Two, or any other world in the current Demilitarized Zone?”

It took them a while to approximate the sort of establishment one might find on a mining colony, and populate it with holograms based on species they would be finding in the zone. She created a scenario in which they would be walking into the bar, approaching the management, seeking employment. 

The first run-through, they were in uniform. She froze the program and turned to Mike. “Has the doctor found you yet? You know she’s always looking for new talent for her productions.”

It helped a little, to encourage him. He lost some of the anxiety and put a little more convincing energy into his performance. The next version she increased the surliness and hostility of the owner of the bar and the reactivity of the patrons. 

“You’re pretty good at this,” he said. 

“There’ll be plenty of time to tell you stories about why, I have the feeling. Why don’t we come back in the morning, in costume, and run it through another time? Think about a persona you can maintain easily and remember details about.”

“All right.” He studied her for a minute. “I thought for a while that you were -- well. With Riker.”

She frowned at him. 

“It was confusing. I couldn’t figure out what you saw in him. I figured you for someone who would want more than a pretty face. I guess I was right?” Mike shrugged sheepishly. 

“You think I’m more complicated than I appear?”

Mike grinned and gave his head a shake. “Oh, yeah. I know the type well. I’ll tell you all about my sweet Leila, some time.”

She left the holodeck with him, but went to sickbay after he got off on deck eight. It was nearly time, she noticed, to go get Alexander. When she got to the school she was met by Carla, the teacher, at the door.

“You’ll want to know that he got into a fight today,” she said quietly. “No one was hurt. A little pushing and shoving. But so far as I could tell, it wasn’t provoked by anything Bo did.”

“He got in a fight with Bo? How odd.” Deanna took a step into the classroom. There were eight students, the oldest was nine, and Alexander was the youngest but the largest. Bo was sitting across the room from him and looking distressed. The six year old girl had a scowl and wouldn’t look at Deanna either, though she was usually happy to see her.

“Alexander, let’s go,” Deanna called. 

Alexander shoved aside his small desk as he stood up, sending it across the floor on its side.

“Alexander! Pick it up,” Deanna exclaimed sternly. The rest of the kids and Carla looked askance at her -- it wasn’t like her to be that firm.

Sullen, he obeyed, putting the chair down with more force than necessary. He stomped and dragged his feet, and wouldn’t look at her. Rather than have an argument there Deanna led him off to the lift, holding his hand.

“It sounds like you had a hard day, today,” she said calmly, letting her concern be heard.

“Yes,” he said angrily. It was so much the sort of tone Worf would take when frustrated. She smiled sadly.

“What happened with Bo?”

“I hate her.”

Deanna squeezed his hand. “Alexander. What happened?”

“She said her dad went on a mission and never came back. She said he left her mom for someone he met, while he was gone. She said sometimes people don’t come back when they go on missions. They get promoted and leave. They meet people they want to be with.”

“I suppose you think that applies to me, but I’m going to say it again, that I’m not going to leave you anywhere, Alexander. Not forever -- I’m coming back, because I have you and my friends and Captain Picard here. I’m not going to leave any of you.”

He growled angrily. Darting into the lift when the door opened, tearing his hand out of hers in the process, he scowled up at her. 

“We’re having dinner with our friends tonight. Wesley will be there, too.”

“I don’t want friends. I don’t want anything!”

Deanna followed him when he ran from the lift on their deck, followed him into their quarters, and then into his room. He threw himself across the bed and growled again, and grabbed a pillow in both hands. It started to tear and the stuffing fell out in clumps. 

“Alexander -- “

“Go away! I don’t want you!” he shouted, throwing the pillow and grabbing another.

Deanna retreated and sat down on the couch. She sensed his anger subside a little, but he continued to simmer. She sighed and waited, wishing she had easy answers. 

Jean-Luc arrived with a concerned expression on his face. Without a word, he came to sit with her. 

“He’s tearing apart things in his room,” she said quietly. “He’s so frightened, he’s furious.”

“And you’re feeling helpless -- not something I’m used to seeing, in you,” he murmured. He touched her hair, just the lightest contact as he gave her a sympathetic smile. “I’ll go talk to him.”

She stared in shock at his back, as he headed off to Alexander’s room and went in. She waited, paying close attention to their emotions, and tried not to panic. 

And then they emerged -- Alexander walked out with the captain behind him, a hand resting on the Klingon boy’s shoulder. “I think you need to,” Jean-Luc was saying. 

Alexander stopped and stared at her for a minute, then rushed over to hug her. She reciprocated gently. He’d settled down and felt much less angry, though she thought he would still be sullen, at the end of this. 

“I’m sorry, Mom,” he told her quietly. 

“I know this is hard. I understand how you’re feeling.”

Alexander drew back -- not smiling, but not feeling the same level of violent urges as before. “I should do some work. I… didn’t do much, in class today. Can I go ask Wes if he’ll help me with it?”

“Of course. I’ll see you for dinner, all right?”

Alexander returned to his room momentarily and re-emerged with his padd, leaned on the captain in passing, and went out without another word. Deanna watched him go and sighed.

“I wish I could help him more,” she said.

“You’ve done an amazing job. I think he’ll be fine.” 

She watched him return to the couch, and smiled when he put an arm around her. “Thank you.”

“Did you get what you needed to do all done today?”

“Mike and I are doing another run through in the morning. We should be ready by the time we leave.”

“I’m sure you will.”

“I’m going to miss you,” she said softly, wishing, unable to look him in the eye. The arm across her shoulders tightened. His trepidation resonated with hers. 

But he said nothing, just sat with her, until the annunciator went off -- Deanna knew it was Beverly. They were supposed to be going to the holodeck with the rest of the senior staff, for dinner. 

They got up and went -- his smile was as superficial as hers, and when she would have let go of his hand as they approached holodeck three, he held on, refusing to let go as they went in. She sensed Beverly’s smile as the doctor followed them in. 

It didn’t surprise anyone. She took her seat, at the captain’s right hand, and watched him pour her some of the wine he’d provided, as their friends joined them at the table and the chatter started. 

“We’ll be fine,” Jean-Luc said quietly. He held her gaze for a moment, and then looked up with a smile as the doors opened again, a hole in the blue sky and the landscape -- someone had re-created an outdoor restaurant on Risa. Data came in with the familiar case containing the poker set under his arm. Behind him came Wesley and Alexander, both of them calm. 

Deanna composed herself and set aside anxiety and thoughts of tomorrow. Tonight was meant to be enjoyed.


	23. The Pissed Prostitute and Her Protective Pimp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I do enjoy myself sometimes, with the things that come up as I go along.
> 
> Bloodlines is the next episode to get the rewrite. And I shall skip Emergence, and All Good Things, and segue into the Dominion War and possibly Generations and the destruction of the D. Since I do not read the TNG (or any other Trek) novels everything will be coming out of my fertile imagination and DS9 episodes.

Deanna came home -- really, one of the back rooms in the bar called the Flying Monkey but informally known locally as Nadion’s -- and threw her shoe at the crooked picture of the Grand Nagus hanging on the wall.

She started to swear in Tellarite, because it was an excellent language for that, and moved on to Klingon as she plucked off her other shoe and sent it after the first. Then she pulled off the idiotic brassiere with ridiculous metallic bits and tassels -- tassels! -- and swore at the thing, flinging it at the head of the bed. The unmade, lumpy, smells-of-grass-and-rotting-leaves bed that had no frame, no headboard and not a single comfortable square inch on it. 

As she peeled the thong from her hips, dropping it to the floor and stepping out of it, she started with Nausicaan, exhausted her limited knowledge of cursing in that language, and then launched into a guttural series of clicks and growls that constituted the ritual insults of a Gorn. Rubbing her eyes wearily, she finally tore beaded pins from her ropy hair, which she had taken to wearing as so many locals did, twisted into what Mike called dreadlocks. 

Distantly, she heard the harsh laughter of Nadion -- the ugly little Ferengi who owned the place. He so enjoyed her fits of temper. 

Rather than sit on the lumpy mattress she went out the door, down two doors, and shoved into the bathroom without knocking. The moldy shower provided little relief -- she usually felt as grimy as she had going in, but it took off the glitter she powdered her body with for the shows. 

When she returned to her room, Mike was back from the markets with a box of food. He looked like a dusty and weary ex-officer with a short beard, and she thought he was lucky as hell -- he could be disgruntled and ordinary and no one gave him a second look. She wished she could just put on pants and a shirt, already.

“Any luck?” He asked every night after the last show. 

“Maybe tomorrow.”

He passed her a large melon as she sat on the single chair, and took a loaf of bread to sit on the bed, to eat and look up at her as they debriefed. “I picked up some more information about some of the ships in the yards. They’re refitting some old freighters now. I’ll record it before we go down for the dinner rush.”

“Nadion wants me to dance during the lunch hour, in addition to midafternoon and evening. I told him to go fuck his mother.” Giria, her alias for the foreseeable future, was possessed of a foul mouth, a worse temper, and was only kept in check by her stern and demanding husband, Jim. She’d made Beverly give her scars and tattoos that covered most of her torso, with elaborate banded patterns on her arms and around her throat. She had vivid green eyes like glowing emeralds thanks to some temporary implants and slight forehead ridges that matched no known species. She could claim to be a hybrid of any kind she liked, and had told different people that her father was Romulan, or Ullian, or even Klingon. Creating rumors of her exotic nature only made her more of an attraction. 

Mike, aka Jim, ate his bread and reached for a piece of fruit from the box. “He asked me if you were good at oo-mox. I told him I tried to get you to, back on Garson Four, but that you tore the Ferengi’s ear off when he tried to lick you.”

“Good. It’ll save me the trouble of trying to find another job after the little prick bleeds out after he propositions me again.”

Mike laughed at it, loudly. Making noise was part of their cover -- they had staged a loud fight yesterday, and made it sound like they were having violent sex the day before. Then Mike lowered his voice and sounded less like his cover identity. “I never would have guessed you had this side of you.”

She grinned, showing off her fangs, and whipped her head in a circle, a gesture she used while aggressively dancing around the bar. It made the long ropes of hair patter around her shoulders and occasionally strike the customers like whips. “No whining,” she shouted, throwing the rind of the melon at the Nagus and grabbing a hunk of the tough bread for herself.

Mike grinned at her. “I bet your mother would have a fit.”

“She’d love it.” 

“Did the captain see you like this before we left?” He said it very, very quietly. 

She shook her head. A week and a half ago, she had left the _Enterprise_ with a duffel and she and Mike had ridden along on Shelby’s vessel, the _Endeavor_ , for two days at high warp. Then they were unceremoniously dumped off in a battered shuttle that had been salvaged and was barely operable, so they arrived on the colony on a wing and a prayer, convincingly. She’d had the tattoos, but not the persona or the costume, the last time Jean-Luc had seen her.

“You should show him,” Mike said with conviction.

“Perhaps I will.”

Mike had the evil grin he used sometimes to intimidate people who tried to touch her while she danced. “He’ll love it. You should give lessons.”

“SHUT UP! GET OVER HERE! YOU WILL FUCK ME NOW!” She hated the way it hurt her throat, but she could sense the immediate reaction from the neighboring workers in the other rooms -- she had the wait staff completely cowed, and knew that despite his bravado the putrid little Ferengi that owned the place was afraid of her. She didn't have to be able to sense his emotions to tell. The things she supposedly did with her 'husband' did all the work -- she didn't have to directly confront anyone, once they heard her shrieking and cursing at him.

Mike gave her a look of disbelief, as if to say 'why now,' dropped the peelings from his eaten fruit in the box, and started jumping around on the bed, occasionally punching the wall. She grabbed an old board that she kept in the corner near the door, and beat it against the side of the bed occasionally, wailing here and there, finally building up to a hoarse scream of ecstasy. 

And then they set aside the board, moved the box off the end of the bed, and curled up side by side to rest. It gave them a nap before they had to go downstairs, to perform and hope that Ro Llaren or some other of her identified companions from her Maquis cell might come in. They roamed the marketplace sometimes as well, Deanna hoping to sense the familiar presence of the lieutenant. 

“The things they never tell you at the Academy,” he muttered under his breath.

“Hardly the stuff recruitment propaganda is made of, is it?”

“I’m glad it’s classified. Telling people I spent a week pretending to fuck loudly isn’t the stuff promotions are made of, either.”

“I don’t think I’ve told you about the time I was captured and forced to pretend I was a Romulan….”

\-----------------

After another week of dancing, shopping, visiting other establishments and being vigilant, Deanna started to wonder if this weren’t a fool's errand. But then she sensed something familiar. 

She was on the stairs, making her way down to the back of the small stage Nadion had set up in a corner of the seedy dive he called a restaurant. They had chosen the largest of the bars and the one nearest to the shipyards where Maquis were refitting and repairing the small vessels that came and went. It made sense to stay closer to their ships, in the event a raid took place.

When she peered through the shredded strips of fabric Nadion used for curtains, she saw her -- Ro Llaren, in the same kinds of clothing everyone had. Worn, somewhat dirty from the constant dust kicked into the air by the mining operations. Drab greens, browns and grays. Ro was sitting at a table with two men. At ease, smiling, in a way she had rarely been on the _Enterprise_.

Deanna debated, and heard Nadion barking at Mike for her to get going already -- the crowded floor would thin if the famed Screaming Banshee didn’t get to it already, and fewer people meant lower profits. 

She waited until Mike came back behind the curtain. “Table fifteen, near the door,” she whispered. “The woman.”

“Got it,” he replied before raising his voice. “Get on the stage,” he bellowed, letting his pitch rise with the volume. 

Deanna smacked the console mounted on the back wall that controlled the music, and Mike slipped back out to walk the floor slowly, pretending to look for clients who would pay top dollar to dare to attempt sex with his spitfire of a wife. He’d successfully deterred many already, by asking too much money.

As the syncopated music started she stepped out of the curtains, pitched her head to send her hair flying, and waggled her hips in a slow, provocative figure eight -- as usual, conversation almost stopped in the bar. The usual barrage of lust and amusement, desire and surprise, swelled around her as she went into one of several routines she had created. This one featured saucy jerks of the head, twitches of the hip, a rolling step or two back and forth -- about halfway through the song she would leap to the nearest table and then the drinks of the uninitiated would fly as she kicked up her heels with an arrogant, demanding flair, letting people pull one of the hundred or so gauzy strips she had tucked into the thong and the bra for just that purpose.

She sensed when Ro really saw her face -- the jolt of recognition was quite sharp. She was on her second table, flirting with a man with her eyes briefly just before she leaped away to the next table. Mike was working the room, following her quietly and watching, ready to keep hands off her actual person if anyone dared. 

Deanna leaped to the floor and danced her way around -- after all the evenings of doing this, her body knew the routine, and she’d worked out enough that it didn’t make her sore. The slight perspiration activated the silver glitter she’d coated her skin with, so as customers tugged away the cloth her tanned skin showed through and had an eye-catching shimmer to it. She gave a man some attention, a once-over and a flirtatious roll of the hip, and then a woman at the next table, and she shimmied around and put herself in the position that she could use one of the empty chairs at Ro’s table as a step. Once on top of the table, she waggled and swayed, eye-fucking at the older man on Ro’s left, and then bent backward until she could almost grab her own ankles. Wheel pose -- the term drifted out from memories of yoga classes of yore. Then she put her weight into her hands, raised her feet, pushed her back straight slowly and rolled her hips, until her weight took her off the table and she dropped to her feet on the floor, arms outstretched above her head. 

An immediate pirouette, as applause broke out over the twanging strings and light patter of the drums. She stopped and flicked a finger to point at Ro, catching Mike’s eye -- he stepped in to make the offer and negotiate a price. 

Deanna went on until only a few strips hung down the backs of her legs. She returned to the stage, leaped up, and vanished through the curtain, cutting the music before the end of the song. The clamor started, but Nadion was out from behind the bar at once, soothing patrons, letting them know the lovely Giria would be back after she rested her pretty little feet.

Back in the room, Deanna threw on a robe and sat in the chair, and waited. Ro had settled down. Mike had succeeded -- she recognized the moment feeling the accomplishment. In another few minutes, Ro stepped into the room.

“I never expected to see you again,” she murmured. 

Mike came in and shut the door behind him. “I checked. Everyone’s out front, Commander.”

Deanna stood up, registering the moment of surprise from Ro. “I would imagine you know why we’re here. Are you all right?”

Ro was studying her now with frank dubiousness. “I am. It’s not a costume I would expect for you, but it suits you.”

Mike spent a few seconds being offended on Deanna’s behalf. There was a mocking note to Ro’s statement. Deanna didn’t waver.

“I’m here to extract you, take back all the intelligence you’ve gathered -- the captain is anxious to see you again.”

Ro spent a moment indulging in an internal debate that confirmed, at least to Deanna, that she hadn’t intended to return to Starfleet. Then she pulled a pendant from under her shirt, where it hung on a leather thong. Removing the crystal from it, she held it out to Deanna.

“I’ve been storing reports on it. That should be what they’re hoping for,” she said, blatantly lying.

“Thank you,” Deanna said calmly. “But I don’t believe it will.”

It dawned on Ro, and she let her hand drop. “Oh, yes. The empath. I suppose you’re now going to tell me you can’t let me leave?”

Deanna sadly stared at the woman, thinking about how disappointed Jean-Luc would be. “I’m going to offer you a choice. The Maquis aren’t what you believe them to be, exactly,” she said. “There are Starfleet operatives here.”

Ro laughed disdainfully. “Right.”

“Starfleet is using the Maquis. You think they are all defectors. They aren’t.”

Ro crossed her arms. “Okay. If there are Starfleet officers around, manipulating the Maquis to their ends -- which really doesn’t sound like anything Starfleet would try to do, it’s too devious and dishonest -- what are they really hoping to accomplish?”

Deanna smiled faintly. “All the things that Starfleet can’t do, because it’s too devious and dishonest to do it openly.”

“You’re saying -- “ Ro was thinking about it, hard, and her head tilted left. “How do you know this?”

“You know I can tell when people lie to me. I talk to people. I’ve been here for a couple of weeks, chatting seductively with ‘former’ officers. When I ask them if they left Starfleet, some of them are lying about it. They haven’t left Starfleet. If they are lying about it, they are either here for the same reason you are, or they are here to manipulate cells of Maquis to Starfleet ends.”

“You’re telling me that you know -- “ Ro thought about it, open-mouthed, and shook her head. “What about the two I was sitting with?”

“One of them has been here before. He’s a Starfleet officer.”

Ro sighed, seemed to cave in on herself slightly. “And since you’re one of the honest ones, you’re probably telling the truth. So what’s my choice?”

“Come with us, or be arrested by us.”

“Great choice. Thanks.”

“It was the admiral’s options. If you are of a mind to stay with the Maquis, I am fine with letting you go do that. But I thought you should understand first what they really are. You’re actually making a choice between serving Starfleet openly and honestly, with the captain, and serving them via the behavior of terrorists being led by clandestine, unethical Starfleet officers.” Deanna crossed her arms now, mirroring Ro. 

“Okay,” Ro said softly. “When do we leave?”

“Now,” Mike said. “Our shuttle is waiting in the shipyards. We should use the back door.”

“Toss it.” Deanna upended the chair, used a small knife from under the corner of the bed to tear the mattress open, pitched the portrait of the Nagus against the wall -- she hadn’t liked the way the beady little eyes followed her, anyway -- and Mike kicked around the other end of the room, hitting the wall, knocking a hole in it. He ran for the back door. Ro chased, and Deanna followed, and they burst into the cold air in the alley. Sunset had been an hour ago.

They made it all the way to the shuttle -- running for a while, then adopting a casual stroll as if they were three friends going on a trip. Mike got clearance and took off. At the edge of the solar system, he triggered the Starfleet beacon.

Deanna started wagering with Mike as to which vessel could reach them in the most expeditious manner, and as they struggled along at warp one, traveling for the nearest Starfleet border to get out of the zone, the _Gallant_ made contact. Deanna met Mike’s gaze soberly, as the captain asked them if they needed assistance.

“Hey, when did Will Riker get promoted?” Ro asked into the moment of silence.

Mike turned back to the console. “This is Lieutenant-Commander McCormick, of the _Enterprise_ , requesting permission to dock.”

Another silence. Deanna could sense, now that the starship was approaching at a faster warp speed, the presence of Will -- he was getting over the moment of surprise. “Permission granted. That’s quite a magnificent vessel, there, Mike.”

“Oh, she’s magnificent, all right.” Mike glanced over his shoulder.

“Clothes,” Deanna said, heading for the back of the shuttle. She pulled up a floor panel, and retrieved their Starfleet uniforms and communicators from under a layer of insulation. She tossed his to him. Mike caught the sealed packet and tore it open.

By the time the shuttle had been tractored into the shuttle bay, the only trace of their adventure left visible was Deanna’s forehead, hair and neck tattoo, which showed over the gray turtleneck of her uniform. They stepped out into the clean, bright shuttle bay of a brand new ship. A lieutenant-commander waited for them.

“Hi, Mike,” the officer said. “Welcome aboard.”

“Don’t suppose you could take us back to the nearest starbase?” Mike gestured. “This is Commander Troi and Lieutenant Ro. Lieutenant-Commander Farley, who’s apparently the security chief here. Not sure why anyone would hire a rascal like Joe, though.”

The security chief took them up to the ready room, shooting the breeze with Mike all the way, and Deanna held her breath as Mike deferred to her rank, let her go in first and followed along with Ro. She smiled calmly at Will.

“Thank you for your assistance, Captain,” she said calmly. “I suppose this must be your first voyage, aboard your new ship -- congratulations again on your promotion. I hate to impose, but we just came from an intelligence gathering mission in the Demilitarized Zone -- we need to get to the nearest starbase, and I need a subspace channel to Admiral Nechayev as soon as possible.”

The stunned silence was rewarding -- but he regrouped quickly, coming to attention, taking refuge in the professional. “Certainly, Commander. You can use the ready room. I’ll have the others shown to their quarters for the time being.” He left the desk and went out, taking Mike and Ro with him. 

She settled behind the desk with a grin. The fleet admiral took a while to answer, but her face, wearing an expression of intense interest and happiness, popped onto the monitor. “Commander!”

“I have Lieutenant Ro and Lieutenant-Commander McCormick with me -- we are on our way to the nearest starbase. I haven’t spoken extensively with Ro so am uncertain as to how much intelligence she has yet to communicate with us. When we made contact and removed her from the public eye, we left immediately for the shuttle. But I have a lot to report, myself. Mendhel Two appeared to be one of the major shipyards for the Maquis and there were many of them passing through, stopping in at the bar I established myself in as one of the entertainers.”

Nechayev actually smiled. “Excellent work. I want your full report as soon as possible. The lieutenant’s as well. You should be able to return to your own vessel within a few days. The _Enterprise_ was dispatched to Dorvan, to remove colonists and resettle them elsewhere.”

It was a task that sounded completely distasteful -- Jean-Luc would be in a foul mood. “Admiral, I wasn’t aware there were Starfleet officers in the Maquis.”

“Too many have abandoned their post to join the movement,” the admiral said darkly.

“No -- there are officers who still belong to Starfleet, in key positions, guiding the Maquis in their operations against the Cardassians.”

The admiral went still. She almost wondered if Nechayev had somehow substituted a still image of herself. Then the admiral raised her head, and the intense look in her eyes almost stopped Deanna’s heart.

“Commander, I want to remind you not to share any of the details of your mission until you are fully debriefed. All three of you will compile reports, leaving out nothing, and transmit them to me as soon as possible. I will meet with you along with Admiral Ross at Starbase 312, in a week. Nechayev, out.”

Deanna stared at the UFP logo until she shook herself free of pondering what in hell the admiral was about. She tried not to speculate, but asked for a channel and contacted her own captain.

And got Mike’s second in command, Lieutenant Tandy. Deanna sighed and said, “Hello, Karen. I’d like to speak to the captain.”

“I’d like that too, sir, but he’s on Dorvan in the middle of a meeting with their tribal leaders. I’ll inform him as soon as he returns that you are trying to reach him.”

“I suppose Dr. Crusher is also not available?”

“She’s on the planet’s surface too, only helping at the local hospital. Apparently they have some supply shortages.”

“All right. Just have the captain contact me when he’s aboard. Thank you.”

When she exited the ready room, Will was there, standing up from his chair, and escorted her from the bridge, to deck six. “I gave the three of you quarters in section four,” he explained in the lift. And then embarked on an awkward, tense pause.

Deanna normally would have chatted to break the silence, ask after his welfare, talk about something -- but she stared at the flickering light as the lift started to travel horizontally. The door opened a moment later. He walked her to the fourth door on the left, and halted.

“Thank you, Captain,” she said pleasantly, and turned to go in.

“Deanna,” he said, wistful, pleading.

She spared him a look -- a questioning, cynical one. 

“I’m sorry.”

She smiled serenely at him. A little nod, and she started to turn.

“Wait,” he said, but before he could continue, before she could react, her badge chirped.

“Bridge to Commander Troi.”

“Troi here.”

“I have an incoming transmission for you -- Captain Picard.”

She dodged through the door and said, “Put it through to the monitor in my quarters, thank you.”

Her lunge into the chair behind the desk in the corner almost tipped it over. She settled herself, and as he appeared on the monitor and his eyes went wide, she remembered her hair looked frightful. 

“It’s so good to see you,” she exclaimed, pushing down the urge to touch the monitor. “We’re on our way to Starbase 312.”

Jean-Luc smiled fondly and glanced away, down, and back up at her. Uncomfortable. Anxious. “We’ll be there ourselves, in a day or two. We’re concluding our time at Dorvan.” He seemed to be upset.

“What is it, Jean-Luc?”

He considered something, and to her surprise he brought his fingers to the screen as if reaching for her. “I can’t -- “

She touched the screen, touched his fingers across subspace. “You can,” she said warmly.

“This has been the most miserable month,” he said at last. “Please come home.”

Tears finally escaped her eyes. He sounded so bereft. “I’m trying. I’m on Will’s ship, waiting -- he’s already trying to talk to me. I can’t even look at him. All I want is to be with you.”

His expression went to pain -- she leaned in, bringing her other hand to the monitor, as if she could hug him through subspace. 

“Jean-Luc? Jean-Luc!”

“I’m fine. It’s -- a long story,” he said wearily. “I’ve gotten a message, from Daimon Bok.”

She had to really think about where she’d heard that name before. “You mean that Ferengi who tried to control your mind?”

“He’s threatening the life of my son.”

“Son,” she echoed, leaning in more, palms flat on the edges of the monitor. “But you don’t have one. Do you?”

“He claims to have found one. It’s… possible. I didn’t believe she wouldn't tell me, but -- apparently….”

“I’m going to tell them to change course. I’m coming to find you. I’m not supposed to meet Nechayev for a week at the starbase, we can be there -- “

“Deanna. It’s all right. Continue as you are, I’m unable to make any changes in my own schedule anyway -- I’ve contacted the authorities on Camor Five, to take him into protective custody until we arrive.” He gazed at her with open longing. “I’ve missed you.”

She tried to smile but her face fell, her composure flagging -- post-mission exhaustion was setting in. “Do you like my hair?”

“It’s not your usual. I suppose it was necessary?” He tried to smile as well. “You need to work on a report, I assume. How did the undercover portion of the trip go?”

“You have a really versatile security chief -- he managed well enough. He kept everyone's grubby hands off my body and didn’t touch me, and kept pricing me out of the sex trade, but in the process I became a better dancer and worked on my tan. I’ll show you when I get there. How is Alexander?”

“I wish I could say everything has been going well. He’s incredibly touchy. I’m going to contact you again later, put him on, so you can prove to him you haven’t run away with Mike.”

“In the meantime I’m going to work on my report and nap. Perhaps brush my hair out and give it a good shampoo -- I think there are things living in it. The bar was anything but hygienic.”

“I would be happy to help you, if I could.”

The low tone fairly vibrated with tension. She briefly considered talking him through a round of subspace sex, but he appeared to be in the ready room. Not to mention she had no idea how he would take to that suggestion. 

Instead, she tilted her head and gave him one of the salacious, narrow-eyed smiles that worked so well on patrons in the bar. “I’m going to take a bath,” she whispered, her fingers wandering up to open her jacket. “Let my fingers have your way with me.”

A muffled sound told her he understood -- he was bowing his head, his hands wrapped on the sides of his head as if defending himself. “I’ll do that. I mean -- damn -- Deanna, just -- “

“I’ll talk to you later, Jean-Luc.”

He raised his head, looked longingly across subspace, and cut the connection. Sighing, Deanna headed into the bedroom. “Computer, fill the tub with hot water. Replicate a bowl of chocolate ice cream, with hot fudge and chocolate shavings. Also replicate a silk nightgown and a fuzzy soft robe, a hair brush, and sandalwood incense.”

She really debated, then, whether computers on starships really logged everything replicated. But she decided she didn’t care. Removing the ice cream, she watched the nightgown appear, draped it over her arm, watched the robe appear, draped it over the nightgown, picked up the hair brush and the incense.

“One dildo.” The realistic model that materialized surprised her. But, it was a little small. She asked for an increase in diameter and got something that looked about the right size. She hefted it and grinned, and headed for the bathroom.


	24. Jackass Repellent

Deanna left quarters two hours later feeling off. Her hair was still a mess, but the _Gallant_ had a salon, and that would help. She had spent a healthy amount of time in the bath, focusing on Jean-Luc, experiencing the first real sexual urges she’d had in a month, and it had been… adequate. The irony, of pretending to be a prostitute and being so turned off by all the nudity, dancing and constant barrage of sheer lust and avarice that she hadn't felt that way in weeks. She'd avoided thinking about Jean-Luc as much as possible, most of the time. 

Deanna spent another hour waiting for the hairdresser to restore her hair to normal, which entailed trimming it back to the shortest it had ever been, a cap of tight curls -- she immediately requested extensions to get back to semi-normal. It resulted in looking almost like her normal self with shorter hair.

In the corridor outside the salon, she hesitated to take stock. “Computer, location of the captain.”

“Captain Riker is on the bridge.”

Deanna rushed to her deck, and once in the corridor outside her quarters she ran into Ro, in uniform again, and Mike. They stopped talking and watched her approach.

“Feeling better?” Mike asked.

Deanna grinned, showing her still-pointed teeth.

“You have got to keep those,” Mike said with a laugh. “That’s great.”

“It’s strange, being on a Starfleet vessel," Ro said faintly.

Deanna studied Ro, and found what she had always found, when she focused on the young woman. Ro had refused all offers of counseling, refused to do anything about the symptoms of trauma that were evident -- unlike the captain or other officers, Ro had the kind of trauma few Federation children experienced, systematic complex trauma that began in early childhood. It wasn’t a focus of most Starfleet counselors. Few trained at all in methodologies that worked for complex trauma.

After months of dealing with Alexander, Deanna thought about Ro with a new perspective, and decided that her approach with the Bajoran would be different, from now on.

“It is strange, being here, I feel completely out of place -- I hope that I don’t start to dance in the middle of the lunch rush in the mess hall,” Deanna said with a grin.

“The uniform feels restrictive.” Mike flexed his arm, bending the elbow.

“Come on in, let’s get some coffee. Haven’t had it in a month.” Deanna went to her door and was glad to see they both followed.

Ro felt awkward as hell -- she often had in social settings, Deanna had always hoped to help her with that -- but she sat on the couch and accepted a mug and reached for the creamer. “So what’s been going on while I’ve been gone?”

“You already know about Riker,” Mike said. “Data is the new first officer. And Deanna took the bridge test. I heard she passed with flying colors.”

“Lieutenant Mabyora transferred,” Deanna said, remembering that Ro had socialized with the Denobulan from operations. “There were some changes in the security department….” She met Mike’s gaze, with the sober realization that Ro hadn’t heard about Worf. “Mike is our new security chief. Worf died in the line of duty, protecting the captain.”

It stunned her. To Deanna’s surprise, Ro was overwhelmed with sadness. It eased somewhat after a bit. “So what happened to his son?”

“Alexander lives with me, now,” Deanna said. “Worf stipulated in his will that I was to take care of him. I’m helping him through all the trauma of losing both his parents -- he’s been staying with others, while I’ve been gone. The senior staff have all been helping with him. I’m hoping that when he’s older he’ll be able to spend time with his uncle on the home world.”

Ro nodded thoughtfully, and didn’t make a snide remark as Deanna expected. “How is the captain?”

“He’s fine. I spoke to him, earlier. They’re on a mission in the Demilitarized Zone but will meet us at the starbase in a couple of days. And Admiral Nechayev will be there in a week, to speak to us. We aren’t to discuss the mission until we’re fully debriefed, she said -- just forward our reports and meet with her as scheduled.”

“The fleet admiral herself, wow,” Ro exclaimed. “I guess it is her baby, after all. This zone and the abandonment of Federation citizens.”

“I wish everything were simpler, but the longer I’m in Starfleet, the more I see that it never has been, and never will be,” Deanna said with a sigh. “I just spent weeks selling myself to an audience and taking advantage of a bar owner and his poor staff, taking advantage of the desperation of people who have no home in the Federation any more, because an admiral told me to. Because millions of lives are at stake. A lot of people wouldn’t even have a chance of survival at all.”

“It’s frightening to think about the gap between what you join Starfleet to do, and what you actually end up doing,” Mike said.

Deanna gave him a brittle smile. “As a counselor I’ve always heard the traumas of other people. When I started to have my own, it was almost startling that I could talk myself through -- work through it in a short period of time. Sobering to think that the reason I could was because of my being asked to help others. And yet, I can’t always help. The people who need it have to choose to accept help. The hardest part is to convince people they can stop feeling as they do.”

“You’re doing a great job with Alexander,” Mike said. “He talked all about you when I took him to the holodeck -- and then he told me how everyone can have symptoms of trauma, and it was okay if I wanted to talk to him about it. Leave to a kid -- you might be raising the first Klingon counselor.”

Deanna smiled happily at the thought of her son. “It’s hard to believe he’s struggling so much, sometimes, isn’t it? I’m so proud of him for how hard he is working.”

“I guess if I talked to him today, I'd have to tell him I actually do feel some of the symptoms now. This mission was a trauma, in a way -- I’m not going to feel like myself until I’m home and worked through all of what we went through.” He snorted. “I’m having to readjust to not admiring your tan, or shouting about things.”

“You’re going to have to adjust to not talking about admiring my tan,” Deanna said, kicking his ankle lightly. “Or I’m just going to swear at you some more.”

“Or I’ll get fired -- oh, hold on, I know he wouldn’t, I’m just kidding,” Mike exclaimed, leaning away from her scowl.

“What are you talking about?” Ro asked.

“The captain is a close friend,” Deanna said -- saying more would most certainly have an impact on Ro’s relationship with the captain, at this point, and she was unwilling to do that. In fact, she thought, if anyone said anything to Ro about it, it should be the captain himself. She gave Mike a stern look and he did as she expected, and moved on.

“I’ve learned a lot this trip -- never knew you could swear in Vulcan.”

“It’s not so much swearing as it is conversing in harsh terms.”

This was processing the emotional impact of the trip -- telling and retelling the events had that effect, and the senior staff had long had the habit of doing so. Deanna had heard Ro do the same. But she was being curiously quiet, and she thought she knew why.

“The hardest thing of all for me was sensing the desperation,” Deanna said. “People who felt they had no choice at all, doing things to survive. Knowing there wasn’t anything I could do to help them. I think I have some idea of how people become cold, heartless, turn off the sympathy and the compassion, when they are faced with situations like this. It’s easy to think about having all of Starfleet at my command and the things I might accomplish, until I’ve been through a situation like this. Seen how overwhelming it all is -- if I focus on individuals I lose sight of the larger picture, if I focus on the Federation I lose sight of the people. I’m not sure I would ever want to be an admiral.”

“You ended up stuck in the bar most of the time,” Mike said -- his sadness and even anger said he felt the same as Deanna. “I saw the families. Seeing the kids was the worst. I grew up on Earth, I never saw things like that.”

Deanna sipped her coffee -- amazing, how much she’d missed it. “I hated spending weeks in the employ of a fat Ferengi but perhaps it was better for me to not see the children.”

“Afraid you might be tempted to join the Maquis?” Ro said, the emotional underpinnings of the question stronger than her expression suggested.

That explained what had tempted Ro, perhaps. Deanna shook her head. “More likely I would have tried to smuggle them off to Betazed. My mother gets into trouble, on her own. If I could give her something to do it would probably help.”

“I guess that answers the question,” Mike began, but stopped himself.

“What question?” Deanna asked.

Mike leaned back, drank his coffee, and gave her a look that seemed to ask if she really wanted him to say. It was easier, the more closely you worked with people, to read the nonverbal and emotional information they provided. When she gazed at him expectantly he sighed. “The question of why the captain is so formal all the time. Compared to other captains.”

“Psychoanalyzing the captain? I thought she was the psychologist,” Ro exclaimed, gesturing at Deanna.

“It makes sense,” Mike said defensively. “The longer he’s in Starfleet, the more horrible suffering he sees, the fewer opportunities he takes to get to know people well -- if you aren’t looking at the terribly sad children in front of you it’s easier to work on helping the millions of sad children across the galaxy, because you’re not caught up in their pain yourself.” And then Mike stared at her, and Deanna wanted to stop everything -- throw them both out of the room and go back to bed. But she didn’t. Perhaps, she reasoned, a little emotional transparency would help her help Ro, in the end.

“What?” Ro prompted, a little nervous.

“It’s -- why,” Mike said, starting to feel great sympathy. “Why you put up the careful, polite front with everyone on board. It’s not just because you’re ship’s counselor, and you have to deal with everyone that way. It’s the empathy -- you have to put nearly everyone at arm’s length because having them close is overwhelming.”

Now Ro was staring at her as if she hadn’t ever guessed there might be a different reason than the one she’d assumed. Ro had always treated her as though she were a spoiled innocent -- as if Deanna had no idea what it was like to experience pain or deprivation.

“I used to think you were… untouchable. Beautiful, but in this fragile sort of way. Distant. But it’s more about balancing yourself,” Mike said. “Because you have to keep yourself sane somehow. Sensing all the chaos around you but remaining calm and composed, because it’s impossible to help people with anxiety if you’re not. Hiding all your own difficulties because your job is to focus on the pain of others. And there’s nothing fragile about you at all.”

“Well, now that you’ve figured it all out, I suppose there’s no point in going on -- I’ll have to quit Starfleet,” she exclaimed, grinning, and he laughed with her for a moment.

“Right, as if the ship would be able to function without you.”

Ro had withdrawn a little and watched them with her usual emotional guardedness. Deanna continued to smile at Mike, thinking about what a difference there would have been, if he had been first officer.

As if responding to that thought, the annunciator went off and it jarred her from the moments of focus on the two people with her, so that she sensed at once that Will stood there waiting for her attention.

“Captain Riker wants to talk to us,” she said. “Come in.”

When Will did so, he smiled politely at the three of them. “Mind if I take a moment of your time, Deanna?”

“I haven’t called Leila yet -- see you later, Giria,” Mike exclaimed, beating it out of the room as quickly as he could. Ro didn’t even say that much before she departed without looking back.

“Giria?” Will echoed curiously. When he came around the coffee table to sit with her, she edged away from him to leave at least a foot of air space between them.

“My cover name, for the mission. What did you want to discuss?”

Will gave her an insulted, wounded look. She ignored it and continued to regard him with the collected, calm good will of Counselor Troi, knowing it would both protect her and infuriate him.

“You could have told me you were in love with him,” he said softly.

Deanna rolled her eyes. “Oh, no, I most certainly could not. I told you no, repeatedly. I refused to allow you to approach me. I walked away from your advances. If you are telling me that I must be ‘claimed property’ for you to leave me alone, you provide me with excellent reasons to not only refuse to marry you, but to never have anything to do with you again. If this is why you are here, you can leave.”

“Deanna, you aren’t being fair.”

“Please leave, Captain.”

“Deanna -- “

“No.” She rose to her feet and moved away from him.

“I’d really like to be friends. I don’t understand why you won’t -- “

She glared at him then, and he fell silent. “I won’t interfere with your relationships with others, Will. That’s the best you’ll get from me.”

He stared at her, exasperated and petulant, chewing his lower lip pensively. “Why? Why throw me away like this?”

“Don’t ask me to tell you what you don’t want to hear.”

“Obviously, I want to hear it,” he said angrily, the cold seeping into his tone.

Deanna glared again, and started to smile. “I doubt that. If I tell you what I have observed, empathically, over the past years, it will be the truth. You have too much trouble understanding reality for me to believe you will sit still and listen.”

His anger doubled, and now he rose to his full height. “Try me.”

“You don’t love me,” she said, almost as cold as he. “You remember what it was like before. That I become so involved, emotionally, that it’s difficult for me to have any objectivity. You thought that I would let you sweet-talk me into building that bond again, with you, because you have some affection for me and you think you’re ready for some intense sex to go with your daily routine. Instead of trying to find the more obedient or compliant or shapely woman of your dreams-- perhaps some alien woman might be even better than I am, in bed. That’s what you thought, wasn’t it? And all the attempts with women aboard the ship, I’m supposed to set all that aside -- sensing how you DON’T feel for them, while you are doing your song and dance to get some action?”

She waited, but he merely kept himself in check, his jaw clenched while he seethed. He was trying to prove that he would be able to listen -- why hadn’t she thought of challenging him to do that before?

“What you didn’t count on was the influence others have had on me. Instead of paying independence and self determination lip service as a counselor, I actually figured out what that really was, and decided I wasn’t going to let anyone take it from me. Instead of spending the rest of my life being thrown about on the tides of the emotions of others, I became emotionally independent. I realized as I did so that you didn’t have the respect for me that you pretended, and you didn’t really care that I had a brain.”

“How can you say that?”

The pattern was so obvious to her now -- he sounded wounded, by what she said. That she would suggest that he didn’t have any respect for her wounded him, that’s what he wanted her to think, and before she might have taken the emotions he felt as he spoke as confirmation. But she had become a connoisseur of emotions, over the years. All the subtleties of them, as people conversed. And that wounding he felt -- that was not him, being hurt by the implication she made. That was Will Riker feeling the pain of not being taken as seriously as he thought he should be. It was Will being told he was wrong, and feeling slighted.

“I can speak the truth all day,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “You don’t respect me as a fellow officer. You don’t respect me, or any other woman, as people. The feelings that you had for me before, they were intense, but they were not what I have come to know as love -- I’ve had enough experience now with people to know what that really feels like. I know what people do, when they love someone, what they say, how they act. I know that you have a completely different vocabulary when it comes to love. You lie, to yourself. You lie and believe it so much that I never sensed the lie. You live in an emotionally impoverished state so warped that you wouldn’t know love if it chewed you up, spat you out and kicked your ass into the next parallel universe! So, no, Will, I will never, ever, look at you with any affection again, no matter what you say, no matter how hard you pretend nothing is wrong. Get off my fucking couch and stay out of my fucking life, you fucking asshole! Stop wasting my fucking time! You pustulating, gaping wound on the ass-end of Starfleet! You swaggering, arrogant, hateful, manipulative fucking bastard! Fucking parasitic cunt hair on a rabid targ!”

“Are you done?” The hard, cold words didn’t even have an impact. He did as he usually did. Waited to say his piece.

Deanna realized, as she stood there clenching her fists, that she was. So done, in fact, that she continued to stand there without wrapping her hands around his throat. She looked at the desk just a few strides to her left, and moved over to sit and touched the panel in front of the monitor.

“I’m sorry you’re so angry,” he began, in a conciliatory tone that only enraged her again. She raised her eyes and imagined having a phaser in her head, having it at the ready to fire.

“For anything you say to me to have any impact at all, there would have to be some shred of interest or affection left in me. The biggest favor you could do for me would be to go back in time, find your younger self, and tell him to leave me the hell alone. If I had a way to remove memories from my head, you would be so fucking out of my life so fucking completely that I would have to have you introduced to me all over again every time you saw me. And then I would go right back and have you wiped out of my head again.”

“If you want to borrow a shuttle, go right ahead -- be my guest.”

Deanna turned back to the desk. No way she would fall for that bait. Being accused of stealing a shuttle was the last thing she needed. “Computer, open a subspace channel to Dr. Beverly Crusher, on the _Enterprise_.”

He lingered, then went for the door as Beverly answered cheerfully. “Deanna, hi! Jean-Luc told me you were done with the mission and fine…. So what are you so angry about?”

By then, Will was gone and the door closed. Deanna deflated a little. “Will was not leaving, so I needed an audience so he would leave. If I’m interrupting you don’t let me keep you.”

Beverly now became angry, and shocked, and there was some alarm there too. “Oh, no.”

“Beverly?” A nest of angry Cardassian voles started in her stomach.

“While you were gone -- “ Beverly brought her arms up, to lean on her desk. “He’s been in touch with Jean-Luc. It sounded to me, I don’t know -- it felt like Will must have told him something, that now Jean-Luc has this plan, getting together while we’re at the starbase, and poker, and reminiscing -- “

Deanna didn’t have time to warn her friend, she darted off for the restroom and barely made it to the sink, just inside the door, before the coffee she’d had came back up. She returned to find Beverly waiting patiently. “Sorry. That much coffee on an empty stomach was a bad idea. I should have eaten something, it’s been an eventful day and I haven’t since morning -- wait. No, I suppose it was lunch, by Starfleet time.” It was almost dinner time. That explained Will, he’d gone off duty before coming to harass her. And her body was so out of sync she hadn’t been hungry.

“I guess I should get off and let you talk to Jean-Luc about this. But I’ll see you tomorrow - late, but tomorrow?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

She didn’t have to ask for an open channel, however -- the minute the monitor went to ‘end transmission’ and the logo, the bridge contacted her again. This time, her hand went to the screen -- he looked less stressed than before.

“I have Alexander here with us,” he said, as the boy came into view and leaped up -- Jean-Luc let him sit on his lap and lunge at the screen.

“Mom! Are you all right did you get Ro how are you can I have a -- “

“Alexander,” she cried, waving her hands, “slow down. It’s so good to see you -- I’ve missed you so much! Tell me how things went -- how are your grades? Are you talking to Bo again, like we discussed?”

She had to evade so many questions, about the mission, and made things up. They talked for a long time, while Alexander excitedly went on about making up with his friend, wanting a pet, asking repeatedly about when they could go riding, or skydiving, or sailing -- Jean-Luc had clearly been keeping him busy and on task, as his grades had improved.

“Alexander, I know you have more to say, but it’s getting late and I’ll see you tomorrow -- you should go to bed. I’m tired, too.”

She saw his expression change and almost flinched in anticipation, but Jean-Luc nudged him off his lap and added a stern order to go. Alexander said a sullen ‘good night’ and she watched his hair move along the edge of the screen and out of view.

“He’s been much better since we told him you were all right and on your way home,” Jean-Luc said after a moment. “What’s wrong?”

She bit back the sob. “Will came in here and tried to talk to me again. Told me he wanted to be friends. I told him off.”

Jean-Luc’s amusement at that helped. “I don’t suppose you could do it again, while we have an open channel?”

“Oh, it isn’t the first time. It was the first time I called him out for what he really is. He reacted without a lot of emotion -- nothing new to him. He was furious, but only because I refuse to listen to his lies.”

“Are you in any danger?” he asked softly.

“No. I can deal with him, on a professional level. I won’t let him go to the personal again. If I see him again. I’m going to eat and then sleep, when we are done, and I’m staying in quarters until I can leave the ship.”

“I called because I thought there was something wrong. I had no reason to think that, except it sounds like there was -- I invited him aboard, when we are at the starbase. I want to talk to him.”

Her stomach started to feel like a pit of voles, again. She nodded, unable to find words.

“When I am done with him, he will leave you alone,” Jean-Luc said.

Deanna wanted to cry, but simply looked at him, pleading with her eyes. “Please don’t do anything -- just leave him, let him think what he thinks, I don’t -- it doesn’t matter, Jean-Luc. He doesn’t matter”

“I’m just going to talk to him. I -- “ For a moment, he had the forlorn expression again, instead of the dark anger when he was thinking about Will. “I won’t let anyone put that expression on your face again. He will understand that, and he will leave you alone.”

“You can’t reason with a psychopath,” she said breathlessly. Putting the name to it made the voles turn into targs, and her stomach pain started.

Jean-Luc stared at her -- if she’d been in the room, she knew what would be there. Rage, perhaps even hatred. His eyes had burned that way, after the Borg. Deanna felt the tears streaming down her cheeks now, and looked at the surface of the desk, at her distorted reflection in the black glassy surface.

“Go to bed,” he said at last.

“I love you,” she said, touching the monitor again.

A slight smile, and he did the same. “I love you, Deanna.”

She was almost ready for bed when the annunciator sounded. It wasn’t Will, so she put on the robe and went out to open the door. Mike came in, still in uniform.

“Are you okay?”

Deanna nodded. “Why did you think I wouldn’t be?”

“Oh…” He did things humans did, when nervous, fidgeted, shrugged. “I went to talk to Ro a little more, and when I came out of her quarters Riker was blasting down the corridor like he wanted to kill someone. I tried to go to bed, but then all I did was worry about you. I mean, you’ve been my ‘wife’ for a few weeks, and a friend for longer than that, and Riker is an arrogant jackass capable of pretty much anything….”

“Thank you, Mike. You’re right, he was traumatizing. But I’ll be all right.” Deanna smiled at him. “I’m planning on staying in here, until we can disembark at the starbase. But you can come talk to me -- I’d appreciate the company.”

“Especially if I can be jackass repellent?” He grinned lazily. “Hey, anything for Captain Picard.”

"Keep bucking for a promotion, then," she said, grinning back. She could sense it was a joke well enough.

She bade him a good night, and went back to bed. Thankfully, Will didn't return until after Mike showed up for breakfast. And left again. Will didn't like an audience, and she felt safe as long as she had one.


	25. The Unwife, the Unhusband and the Ugly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When do you start to feel the full impact of your choices?
> 
> When you have unintended consequences.

Deanna left her guest quarters on the _Gallant_ with nothing but the uniform on her back and joined her two companions on the way to the transporter room. They got there to find only the attendant in the room, and Deanna sighed in relief and led the way onto the pads.

“Weird,” she heard Ro mutter, just before the beam started to take them. No doubt she had expected Will to give them a friendly send off.

It was ship’s night, on both ships. Deanna greeted the ensign on duty as she arrived home. She turned to Ro. “Your quarters are as you left them. I’m going to kiss my son good night, and go to bed -- I worked most of the day on that damned report for the admiral, and I’ll probably spend some of tomorrow on it too. I have a lot of material to translate into bureaucrat.”

“That’s a language you speak well? I might want you to proofread for me,” Mike said.

“I’d be happy to. I intend to take my time going back to work -- I have to get myself re-oriented to being counselor again, from foul-mouthed angry sex trade worker who used to be a Federation colonist. And I need to spend time with Alexander.” Deanna glanced at Ro. “You should come say hi to him, he remembers you. I told him I was coming to get you. He agreed that was an honorable thing to do.”

“Maybe I'll do that.” Ro smiled, but the uncertainty continued. She’d spent time with Riker, earlier in the day, then joined Mike and Deanna in Deanna’s quarters. Her mood was mixed, making Deanna wonder what Will had told her. But, it would be as it would be.

“Good night,” Deanna said, hurrying off down the corridor. She grabbed the lift and didn’t hold the car for them.

When she got to her door, she stopped and stared -- the small placard with her name was missing. She walked in, and found all the weapons missing from the wall. A glance in the bedroom confirmed that she had been moved.

She went down the corridor. There was her name, right below Captain Jean-Luc Picard. She started to giggle, perhaps a bit maniacally, and went inside. Rather than scrutinize the dark living room to see how he’d added in her things, she glanced at Alexander’s door, and went to the other, Jean-Luc’s. Hers, now.

The lights were all off, but she knew he was still awake and ruminating. He jerked upright when the door opened and sat in the starlight for a few seconds, while his excitement spiraled upward. He leaped out of bed. The two of them collided as she took a few steps to close the gap -- he knocked her breathless and squeezed her tightly against him, until she gasped for air and he eased off.

“It’s good to be home,” she said against his bare shoulder. “I love you too.”

“Deanna,” he whispered into her hair. His hands slid down her back, and she ran hers over his shoulders and raised her head, kissed his face, kissed the skin below his ear, and swayed with him for a moment. It was like reconnecting with her power source. She felt so much better now.

It took some time, but he let her go. Sort of. He held her head in both hands and smiled, his emotional high finally settling into just being happy.

“I hope… it’s okay, that I moved it all,” he said, a little sheepish. “I forgot to tell you, last time I spoke to you. But I -- it was a hell of a month,” he blurted. “I can’t -- don’t go anywhere, damn it!”

“You’re exhausted. I’m not so great, either. Can we go to bed now, it’s almost midnight.”

“Why didn’t the bridge tell me the _Gallant_ was here?”

“Oh, just another day on the good ship Vindictive Asshole -- he didn't see us off either. It doesn’t matter. We all noticed when it dropped out of warp and the starbase was visible through the viewport. You know I’ll come back no matter what anyone else does.” She removed her uniform, piece by piece -- he returned to the bed and watched with great interest. But when she joined him, he wasn’t feeling desire. He seemed to want physical contact more than anything else. He held her against his chest and kept stroking her hair. It was awkward. She wasn’t yet used to sleeping with another person, not one that clung to her like this -- Mike had always kept respectful distance and faced the wall, and Jean-Luc hadn’t been this clingy prior to her departure.

“Here I thought Alexander was the one with attachment issues,” she muttered.

His frustration on that subject came to the fore. “Oh, trust me, he’s had plenty of issues.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“No need for guilt. I signed up for this -- it was simply the icing on the cake, having to have someone with him all the time. He was having temper tantrums in school and I think Beverly was getting the brunt of things, holding him while he cried at night. She came over to put him to bed. Insisted he needed a mother’s touch.”

As he talked about it, Deanna smiled, sensing something behind it. “You argued with her. I suppose you were right, about having different parenting styles?”

“I’d put a positive spin on it, and say we have complementary styles.”

“Perhaps we need a meeting of the parental figures.” She stared up at the stars, as the leading edge of the saucer section of a Nebula class starship crept into view. “Icing? What was the rest of the cake?”

“Oh -- Nechayev wanted me to evacuate colonists who didn’t want to be taken anywhere. They seceded from the Federation. I argued with her, again. She pushes martial law to the brink -- these people have rights, after all. It’s one thing to defend, to compromise, it’s another to push people to make a choice between safety and freedom.”

“Arguing with Beverly, comforting Alexander, arguing principles with a fleet admiral, missing me. Arguing with the Dorvans. All you needed was a puzzling spatial anomaly.”

“Don’t,” he warned.

“We’re at a starbase,” she exclaimed. “ Relax. This is just winding you up again. What can I do to help you sleep?”

He started to think which led to mischief. “There’s a list of things that I can think of -- I’m sure you can think of a few of them yourself.”

“I could tell you a story. Get you some warm milk.” She pushed against him a little, so her breast rubbed his arm.

“Misery,” he muttered. “Absolute torture.”

Deanna rubbed her body against his, slowly, making sure she made contact with his groin. She kissed him briefly, gently, and then slid over him to settle astride his thighs. His hands went to her breasts, and after another brush of the lips she bent and nipped his neck.

He flinched, and started to laugh. “Are you still wearing those damned fangs?”

She growled and nibbled his ear. “I am. I’m thinking of keeping them.”

“That might not be in my best interests. Aren’t you taking your role in the Klingon Empire a little too seriously?”

“Silence! petaQ! Make me come!”

“Wait -- isn’t the angry hooker supposed to be somewhere on Mendhel Two?” He started laughing, as she kept nibbling, and stopped when she kissed him again, with more intensity and no nipping.

She focused on riding him until he came, and it had the predictable effect she wanted. He was exhausted after all, fell asleep shortly after, and it meant she was able to slip away to the bathroom, return, and settle just a few inches away within easy reach to fall asleep herself.

Morning came too soon. Fortunate that she would be able to linger, relax, while trying to get her report done. She sprawled and closed her eyes, and Jean-Luc returned for his jacket, sitting on the back of the chair.

“Good morning,” she mumbled.

“I was going to leave you sleeping -- good morning.” He came to sit and run his hand down her arm, where it lay under the blanket. “Did I perhaps mention it’s good to have you home?”

“Once, maybe.”

He frowned a little and probed her forehead with his fingers. “Are you going back to normal soon?”

“Maybe. Right now, I want to enjoy my very first attempt at cohabitation with a wonderful… unhusband.”

He tolerated her humor with the same skeptical grace as usual. Trying not to laugh, she thought. “I’ll have to change that, at some point, I think.”

"There are a few ways to do that. I'm happy enough being an unwife, for the moment. There’s a lot of things to catch up on -- you and Beverly both made it sound like you were very busy, while I was gone. I’m under orders to forward my report and say nothing until the debriefing with Nechayev and Ross. One of the things I have to do today will be to attempt identification of the former Starfleet officers I wagged my bare ass in front of, and make a list. It should help that Mike was able to take pictures with a small camera he had with him, while I was dancing.”

“The senior staff is meeting in the holodeck for the unofficial debriefing at lunch. Beverly insisted.”

“I don’t know if I’m up for a party,” she said with a sigh.

“Well, sleep in for a while. I can get Alexander off to school.”

She sat up, letting the covers fall away, and turned to sit next to him. “No -- I want to spend some time with him. I’ll take him, late, but I want to let him tell me everything, feel okay, before I drop him off.”

Jean-Luc gave her a fond kiss, then left her to it.

It was so nice, being back. She took the time to meditate, and then to look around -- she found her things neatly put away, around the bedroom, and when she sensed Alexander waking up she started her own morning rituals and emerged wearing a blue dress, her hair pinned back from her face, smiling and enduring the near-tackle of an excited little Klingon.

He wasn’t so little -- Beverly sometimes commented that he was growing rapidly, and now Deanna saw it. His head had been bumping her breasts when she hugged him, now it was nearly at her shoulder.

“You sweet boy,” she exclaimed, when he stood back and brought something out of his pocket. He’d made something for her out of clay, with molded wings. “You made this in class?”

“Uncle Data is helping me learn pottery. It’s a bluebird,” he exclaimed. “We fired it in a kiln and everything! I made it, and then painted it, and the paint looked kind of dark and then when it came out the kiln it was pretty like this.”

“Uncle? Did he tell you to call him that?”

Alexander was dismayed despite the mild curiosity in her tone. “He said I didn’t have to call him Commander all the time. Because I’m not an officer. Beverly said he’s like an uncle, and she’s like an aunt, and so I could call them that -- is that okay?”

“Of course. If they say you can, you can. Let’s get some breakfast and talk.”

To her surprise, he asked what she wanted and got it -- he got a larger meal than before, with scrambled eggs and toast, fruit and sausage. She ate her yogurt, some muesli, and fruit with her coffee and watched him eat everything on his plate. No wonder he was growing so rapidly. They chatted about school until she felt she was caught up on everything academic -- she would talk to the teacher when she dropped him off, as well.

“Did you have fun with the captain and -- your aunts and uncles, while I was gone?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said with a grin, almost bouncing out of the chair. “I can teach you to sail! I figured it out! I rode a horse -- like the time we went with Father to be cowboys, and Father was the sheriff. I had a great time even when I fell off. It was a really tall horse. The captain and I talked about Starfleet! And he told me about his brother, and his nephew, and Wes took me to his favorite restaurant in San Francisco and Beverly said she could help me learn to dance and I played chess, with Data….”

Alexander was the king of the run-on sentence. She finished her yogurt, smiled at him, nodding here and there, and let him list it all, sensing the affection and the joy and all the things a child should have when among people who accepted and loved him. He still felt some anxiety, but she knew it was getting better.

“It sounds like you had a wonderful time, but I heard you had a few problems too. I’m sorry that I had to be gone for so long. I hope you got the help you needed.”

“It was okay,” he insisted. “I’m okay, Mom.”

Deanna picked up her dishes, and his. When she came back to the table after recycling it all, she took his hands and leaned to look him in the eye. “I know you are doing the best you can. I’m so proud, that you’re working so hard. Tonight I’m going to tell you all about my adventure -- it wasn’t a lot of fun, but Ro is back -- everything is okay. Mike did a great job, too.”

At the mention of the security chief, Alexander’s face changed.

“Are you mad at him? What’s that about?”

“I thought -- I wondered if you would just stay with him,” Alexander said quietly. “Not come home. Mike’s nice.”

Deanna wondered if she would ever find out what had been said while she was gone, that would lead her little boy to think about this. “Where are we, right now?”

“In the captain’s quarters.”

“The captain moved all our things in here. He wasn’t afraid that I would stay away, he knew I was coming home. He wanted to make this our quarters, because he knows how I feel about him.”

“So, you’re mates,” he said tentatively. “But -- “

“People will say things. I am the only one who knows what I feel, what I want, what I plan to do. Same with the captain. We know how things are with each other. You can ask us if you have questions. If you heard something that makes you suspect something, remember that other people don’t have all the information they need to know to tell you the truth.” Deanna squeezed his hands gently. “When it comes to me, if you are worried, you should ask me. All right?”

He bowed his head. “Okay,” he said softly. But there wasn’t conviction behind it.

Deanna ran her hand over his head. “Why are you afraid, _tigryonak_?”

“Is it -- are you going to be in trouble, being with the captain?”

She tried not to react to it overmuch. “It’s not going to be a problem. There may be people who think so. People make a lot of mistakes, and it’s okay -- you know we’ll be there for you. Trust me?”

He nodded. But it was clear he’d heard it from someone he was attached to, and there wasn’t much she could do at the moment to shift him from the doubt.

“Let’s get your padd and get you to class.”

Carla stepped out in the corridor, when she dropped him off, and let the door close behind her. “I guess you were told he had temper tantrums. He wrote an essay -- I asked them to write about family, I think you will want to read it. I forwarded it to you.”

“I’ll look for it, thank you. I’m taking some time off so if there’s anything going on with him you can contact me directly.”

“Thanks,” she said with great relief. “It’s good to have you back. Everyone was so wonderful, helping out the way they did, but you always seem to know just what to do to calm him down.”

“I’ll talk to you later. Thank you,” Deanna exclaimed, feeling sympathy for the woman who dealt with the angry boy daily while trying to teach her class.

As she returned to her quarters, Beverly waited for her in the corridor, and gave her a welcoming hug. “I’m so glad you’re back.”

“I need more coffee. Come on.”

They settled on the couch -- Beverly glanced up at the Klingon weapons on the wall over their heads, looked around, and gave her a canny smile. “I guess it’s official?”

“After hearing how Alexander struggled, I’m afraid to hear how Jean-Luc was. It wasn’t pretty, I think.”

“He regressed a lot,” Beverly admitted, losing her amusement. “It was like it was at the start -- how brusque and sometimes cold he was. I'd forgotten how he could be so isolated and hard. At least, that’s what he was on duty. He did a great job with Alexander. Wesley went with them a few times to the holodeck, and he was really impressed, said he never saw the captain be so relaxed with a kid.”

“And?”

Beverly shook her head, raised her cup to her lips, and thought for a minute. “I really hope you never go on one of those again.”

The sympathy and muted concern was enough to tell Deanna how worried Beverly had been about him, while she was gone. “I do, too. It wasn’t fun. I hated being that person. I pushed myself into the persona hard, to not let myself think much about how much I missed everyone.”

Now Beverly’s sympathy was directed at her. “Deanna, is Will still bothering you?”

Not what she expected. “He does, if I have to have any contact with him. Why?”

“Mike McCormick came in for his post-mission exam, to clear himself for duty. Something he said -- while you were on Will’s ship, he had to protect you?”

“He spent time with me, as we each worked on our reports, because otherwise Will would have approached me again. Mike doesn’t like Will, because Will didn't like him, probably threatened by him. Mike’s good-looking in the same way as Will, friendly, charming if he wants to be, and he's not afraid to disagree with a superior officer. There was a kind of emotional push-pull between them that escalated when Mike was promoted. The difference, of course, is that Mike is a genuine and warm person who kept himself in check and never let his feelings guide his impulses.”

Beverly stared at her and sipped coffee. “You don’t usually share like this.”

“I have come to the conclusion that Will’s privacy is less important to me than the welfare of my friends. You may of course continue to interact with Will as you please. But this past year, I have been… I feel differently than I did before. I’ve been through a lot, and I’ve worked hard to change -- focused on my abilities in new ways. I know that I was not always so good at interpreting what I sensed as I am now, and there was never any formal guide to help me through it so I just learned it all the hard way. I realized and accepted, finally, that Will is beyond redemption. That he won’t change. It isn’t a matter of waiting, or encouraging, or confronting. I’ve done all that, asked and hinted and sometimes, I just told him what I thought he was doing and why it needed to change. He never listened. The way he behaved before he left led me to think about him in ways I deliberately avoided, before, and I know he’s not going to be as I believed he was, nor is he going to ever be a friend to me again.”

Beverly pursed her lips. She was feeling resignation, sadness, anger and a lot of the sort of regret that people would feel, when something long suspected came true -- a curious blend of emotions, given the situation.

“Beverly,” she said with equal parts warning and demand.

“Do you remember Odan?”

“Oh, yes,” Deanna exclaimed, exhaling, not really wanting to go there. She’d hated that mission, especially what it had done to Beverly. She found herself dreading what Beverly would say next, given the context.

“I know what you’re going to say,” Beverly said. Apprehension had her sitting upright and stiff. “Odan wasn’t -- it was such an unusual situation. Will being the temporary host, as he was. I kept telling myself it was because of the symbiont’s influence. But part of me felt -- it was really, really creepy, and it still feels that way, more so because of what you’re saying. It felt -- like -- and after Odan was gone Will acted like it never happened, so I did too.”

The voles were back. Deanna almost put a hand on her stomach as disgust and anxiety knotted her intestines. And then it occurred to her -- the clinical her, the one she had so rarely used with Will, before -- that she should have asked herself the question before, had Will done anything to anyone else aboard the ship?

“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Beverly whispered.

“No, you did, we talked about it, and I let it go as well. Remember? Not that it would ever have registered then as the problem I know it is, now,” Deanna exclaimed. She put the coffee on the table and sat for a moment, finding the words. “What I'm feeling, it’s more about what I should have done, the instant I understood that we were working with a psychopath. Computer -- I want you to scan all personal logs of all _Enterprise_ personnel, for the time spanning between the day Commander William came aboard until the day he was promoted. Search all logs for mention of Commander Riker, and assess tone of voice of the person dictating the entry -- I want a count of all log entries that are made with significant stress present.”

Beverly gaped at her. “You think -- “

“I haven’t thought about it enough,” Deanna said, a curl in her lip. “I kept it in the personal realm too long.”

“You can’t possibly -- he’s too smart to do anything like that. Isn’t he?”

The computer came back with the usual quick results, interrupting them. “There are two thousand four hundred twenty-two log entries that meet the criteria.”

“Scan those identified entries for language that might indicate any incidence of assault, force, harassment, coercion or blackmail.” It was, no doubt, true that people were often stressed by high expectations of superior officers -- she heard that common refrain all the time, as ship’s counselor.

“There are nine hundred twenty-four log entries that meet all specified criteria.”

Deanna closed her eyes. “Computer, how many individuals made those log entries?” That would be the key -- upset people trying to process such things would do so repeatedly. It wouldn’t be unusual to make multiple entries about an ongoing situation, either.

“One hundred thirty-nine individuals.”

“Oh my god,” Beverly muttered. She looked horrified. Deanna was too upset herself to sense it.

“I just gave myself another project,” Deanna said with a sigh. “Computer, save that list under header Troi two one nine. Location of Captain Picard?”

“Captain Picard is in the ready room.”

“What are you going to do?” Beverly’s voice went high-pitched, with fear and anger.

“Jean-Luc said you were having a lunch for the senior staff -- you need to postpone it. I need to talk to the captain. I will be contacting a lot of people, over the next week or so, after I finish my mission report. They’ll all be embarrassed, like you, because no one wants to assume that someone they know and respect could be capable of bad behavior, and it’s much easier to chalk it up to a momentary lapse, a misunderstanding, anything but what it was. And you need to make a formal complaint, and forward it to me, as uncomfortable as that will be. If we gather enough of them it may go to a formal inquiry.”

Beverly nodded. Now she was pale and going through high anxiety.

“I know,” Deanna said, sad-eyed and putting her hand on her friend’s arm. ”But I’m doing it too. And it will mean telling the captain more than he wants to know -- I hoped it would be enough, that Will was gone. I can’t un-know this, though. I have to do something.”

“Okay. We’ll do this. Let me know -- if there’s anything I can do to help.”

“We operate under the same confidentiality rules, we can split up the task of listening to log entries and contacting people. But first, I have to talk to Jean-Luc.”

“I’ll be in sickbay, not throwing up.”

Deanna took a deep breath -- something she needed to do more and more often. “I’ve done that myself here and there, dealing with Will. Anxiety just goes straight into the stomach. I’ll come down for my post mission exam when I’m done. Also I need to get rid of the fangs, I suppose, so I’m not mistaken for a vampire.”

“Good luck,” Beverly said. She’d had her share of stressful conversations with the captain over the years.

When Deanna got off the lift on the bridge, she almost turned around and left again. Calming herself down got her to the point that she could sense people, and the last thing she wanted was to look at Will.

But, she smiled at Tandy, at tactical, at Natchez, and went to signal her presence. The door opened, and in she went.

Will actually looked up at her with a smile. She didn’t take the empty chair, when he patted it invitingly. She gave Jean-Luc a look.

“Counselor,” he replied at once. Will was surprised by it.

“I need to talk to you, Captain,” she said.

“This sounds serious,” Will said, rising. “I’ll see you later -- wouldn’t want to get in the way of a domestic dispute.”

Deanna looked up at him, startling him, and she knew the minute she spoke and heard all her anger in her own voice that it was a bad idea. “You needn’t worry on my account, Captain, I’m not at all domesticated. And my dispute has nothing to do with the captain.”

Will flinched and raised his hands, attempting a little physical comedy. “I stand corrected,” he said, in the affable and light tone of someone with nothing to hide and confused by her obvious ire.

Once the door closed and they were alone, Deanna sat down at last. She looked at him and once she saw his sober expression and sensed how he felt she lost her voice.

“Deanna?” he asked finally.

“I’m sure he sounded perfectly rational, to you,” she said. “Trying to make you question my sanity, my judgment, or my veracity in any way he can. I never wanted to do this, Jean-Luc. I would have been all right letting him go, if -- “ She couldn’t go on. This was going to be harder than it would have been, if Will hadn’t talked him into this conflicted state. Jean-Luc wanted to keep his friend, so much.

“He said you were misunderstanding what he was trying to tell you. I know you had your differences....”

She held up a hand, shook her head, and let anger push out the words. “Computer, access file Troi two one nine. Select a random log entry from the list and play it back.”

The voice was female. It took a moment for Deanna to place it -- Ensign Corliss. Operations, for two years, before she transferred last year. “Personal log… I don’t know what to do,” she said, obviously crying as she spoke. “I don’t think anyone would ever believe me. Commander Riker is the first officer. There’s no evidence -- he came up behind me -- just -- touched me, and I told him to stop -- I don’t think I can say -- “

A few sobs, and Corliss recovered somewhat. Deanna remembered now the jittery young woman arriving in her office, never quite getting to the bottom of why she was there.

“I can’t talk to the counselor. I went to the appointment, but I know -- they’re friends, and I know she won’t believe me. She would tell him -- there’s not even a mark, it would be his word against mine. I can’t believe this could happen in Starfleet!”

The log ended abruptly. Deanna wanted to cry now herself, thinking about it, and the horrible feeling in her stomach knotted tighter. “She transferred shortly after she tried to come talk to me. I never got her to tell me what was wrong. This is one log. There are logs from one hundred thirty-nine individuals that Beverly and I will be working through. We are contacting all of them. I am filing a complaint. Beverly is filing a complaint. I anticipate that some number of those people will also file complaints, because it is one thing to think it’s just you, just a mistake, just an awkward moment that came and went and nothing serious at all, but it is entirely another for there to be so many, over the past seven years. I haven’t even begun to dig farther back than that to his previous assignments.”

She heard the tears in her voice, and frowned. While dark rage and disgust settled on his face, she felt the same - shaking her head, she put her hand over her mouth as her stomach rolled.

“How many people might have come to me, if I hadn’t let people assume -- what have I done?” she sobbed.

“You did as I did,” Jean-Luc said. It was remarkable how he could sound so calm. But it was deceptive calm, the kind he fell into when things were wholly unacceptable and requiring his entire focus. “You assumed we had a first officer we could depend upon to ensure the safety of the crew. I chose him, Deanna.”

She was out of the chair and around the desk before she thought about it, and he came to his feet to reach for her. A few moments of mutual comfort was all either of them would allow -- he pulled back even as she did, and Counselor Troi finally came to the fore.

“Listen,” she said, intensely calm. He had been backing away, but stopped -- kept his hands on her arms, and waited. “This is what he does. He will appear to have remorse. He feels very little. He appears to have empathy, but he has none. He apologized to me because I was angry just yesterday, but it was an empty apology. He always appeared to care. He did care about me in a way, but it was him enjoying the control he had over me, not me. He’s very good at appearing to have feelings, but I can assure you that those feelings are shallow at best. I wish that it had not taken me so long, to fully understand everything that I sense, but all I can do now is try -- collect the information that I can, and pass it along to Starfleet, let them do what they want with it.”

“We should do more than that,” Jean-Luc exclaimed.

But Deanna touched his face -- it got his attention, and the surge of anger subsided. “He will make us appear to be overreacting, because he will be calm and pleasant against accusations. It’s part of the game. He made me question what I sensed so many times. What we need is evidence. He will have left very little, if any. We need to be careful.”

He nodded slowly. “It’s difficult, to see him as anything but a friend, after -- I trusted him. But the logs. And -- ” She knew everything was finally registering when he continued, with suspicion. “What was Beverly’s complaint?”

“Something happened between them when he was carrying the Odan symbiont. It was very confusing for Beverly. She almost completely shut down, emotionally, after Odan left the ship. While I couldn’t provide counseling for her I tried to help -- I resorted to sitting with her and letting her cry.”

Something about the way he was, as she spoke, told her he had known that Beverly had been in love with Odan, and had an idea of what had been happening between them. “What happened?”

“You know how trauma works,” Deanna said wearily. “We know more, now, about how the Trill join -- that the host and symbiont have a unique personality, with a sort of shared consciousness. Beverly -- “ She choked on it, covered her mouth with both hands, and wanted to run.

“It’s not your fault,” he whispered. “I don’t even have to know, to understand that.”

“I encouraged her -- she was so happy, I wanted her to have something wonderful, and when she went to him it was -- there was a part of it, she said, where it didn’t feel like Odan was there. It felt like -- then it changed, again, and so she set it aside and tried so hard to move on and be okay because she didn’t want to cause problems when she was uncertain there was one. But it kept bothering her, and she finally told me. We talked about confronting him but she didn’t want to, in the end.”

“You and Beverly will listen to the logs?” he asked. “Make a report.”

“We’ll call all of them,” Deanna said.

“No.” His hands tightened around her arms. “No, I’ll call. All of them. This happened on my watch.”

She smiled at him fondly. “Jean-Luc, he probably only went after women. You are a wonderful man, but all they will see is another man -- you cannot expect female victims of assault to respond openly to you. Please let us approach them.”

Leave it to him to not only understand but to take the next step deducing the rest of the problem. “And I was also the unapproachable captain, who rarely spent any time with the crew. Not caring about their personal difficulties.”

“You were making a choice that you thought would best suit the ship and your duty -- you did not know this would happen. It should tell you that it rarely does, that no one figured it out before now. There is no blindness like ignorance.” Deanna leaned in to hug him again. “Sometimes all the options have unintended consequences, Jean-Luc. It’s never so cut and dried as you want it to be.”

He struggled with it, but gave in -- put his arms around her again, and sighed heavily. And accepted it. She stood back to look him in the eye.

“I know,” he said with a brittle smile. “That was oddly short. But I’ve had plenty of practice, being moody and ruminating endlessly, blaming myself for things -- I’ve learnt to shorten up the process quite a lot.”

She laughed quietly with him and kissed his cheek. She was fairly certain it was Counselor Troi giving him another hug, and turning to get him a cup of his favorite tea.

“Please tell them, as you’re calling, that I want to apologize to them,” he said as she sat down again with her own cup. “Please have them call me if they wish so I can tell them myself.”

“You’re sure you want to do that?”

He had that determined look. “I’m not going to run from the emotions of others, any more.”

Deanna smiled warmly at it -- he was so wonderfully set on it. “All right. But if it becomes too much you can tell me to stop telling them to call you.”

He shot her a scandalized glare. It softened a little, as he thought about it. “You can send me what you think I’ll be able to handle. Better?”

“I think you are the finest officer and gentleman that I have had the privilege to meet, Captain,” she said without a hint of amusement.

His smile started small, and after a few moments he sat silently grinning at her across the desk, as she mirrored his happiness and they held cooling cups of Earl Grey.

“I think that would not be so flattering, if it had been said by anyone else,” he said at last.


	26. Unofficial Briefings

The door opened -- Deanna was standing up from the couch, turning to head into the bedroom, when Jean-Luc returned. He followed her in without hesitation.

“I finished my report and forwarded it to the admiral, and Mike’s has been submitted too. Did you talk to Ro?”

“I did. She admitted that she wasn’t intending to return, but said you told her something that changed her mind.”

“People who let themselves be swayed by emotion are easily manipulated. I reminded her of that.”

“I also told her about us. Because I wanted her to understand before dinner tonight. Beverly has moved our unofficial briefing to holodeck two.” He watched her pull off the dress she’d been wearing all day, and smiled as she ran her hands over her body reveling in her freedom from clothing. “Mike told me you spent ninety-five percent of the mission naked, and shared a room with him. Not certain how I should feel about that.”

“Mike said his lovely Leila will be here soon. In his eyes, I cannot compare, even if I wear nothing at all.”

“I’m sure she’s lovely enough,” Jean-Luc said lazily, stepping up behind her as she contemplated her half of the closet and putting his hands on her hips. 

Deanna closed her eyes and enjoyed the immense pleasure of being held against him, while his hands skimmed her torso, cupped her breasts, slid down her arms, covered her own hands and brought her arms up to cross over her chest. He loved her, and it surrounded her like a blanket. She leaned her head left and he kissed her throat with a feather touch that made her shiver.

“You have no idea how unique you are,” she murmured.

“You can tell me after dinner. Do you need help choosing a dress?”

“Since your opinion is the only one that matters, I would accept your input in this matter.”

His happiness shimmered and tickled -- her body arched automatically, at the pleasure it gave her, and she felt the echo come back to her as his arms tightened.

“I want to be late for dinner.” 

Deanna swayed with him, moved against him, reached for him with her mind and welcomed him as she turned around and responded to the warmth and desire in his voice with an open-mouthed kiss that he returned without hesitation. 

Dangerous, to lose herself this way. So lost in physical and emotional sensations that overlapped and resonated between them to the point that she wasn’t conscious of moving to the bed, until she became aware for a moment or so as his hand slipped between her legs that she was on her back in the blankets. She moved into the sensation, losing herself again and trusting him as he played her body with such skill.

When she opened her eyes again, as the ecstasy drained away and left her in her body again, she was panting and sweat dried rapidly from her bare skin -- her knees open wide and strands of hair sticking to her face. Jean-Luc sprawled with her, most of his weight pressing her against the bed, his lips and tongue working with hers. When he noticed her slowed participation he raised his head and pushed himself off, just enough that she no longer bore his weight. 

“I think we need to make more time for this,” he muttered.

“If we don’t, I’ll be most disappointed. I suppose you wanted to be out of uniform anyway?”

“I expect that will become a regular occurrence. You told me not long ago that you were being restrained, before. I agree.”

She opened her eyes again, and shoved herself up on an elbow. “Did I -- “ She saw his shirt, his jacket, on the other side of the bed, piled in a twisted mess. “I lose myself, when this happens. I don’t remember much other than -- “ Her torso twisted as she rubbed herself against him. “I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

“Oh, no. Quite the opposite. I suppose we should get in the shower, get going.”

They moved through the usual steps to being ready to go, and she brushed her hair while he pulled on a shirt. 

“How did it go today? I had the first call, so I know you must have started to contact people.”

“Beverly and I decided to do a little more filtering -- I sent a message to roughly half of the people with a generic request for information, letting them know we were pursuing charges based on recent reports of incidents involving Will. Telling them to send me an official complaint, if they wanted their voices to be heard. I called a few women whose logs indicated he had been forceful with them. We’re getting a good response, so far. Most are upset that it wasn’t just a misunderstanding with them. You still want them to call you?”

“It was uncomfortable, but it went well, I think.”

She stood up from the dressing table, shoving combs in her hair, and he came up beside her, his hand going to the small of her back. The dress was not skin tight, but showed off her figure well enough -- the black sheath had long sleeves and a modest neckline. 

“Where is Alexander?” he asked as they left quarters.

“Wesley took him to a holodeck -- I don’t think they had a plan but I’m sure he’s having fun.”

“I had lunch with Wes today. He’s thinking about going to a university -- getting into the physics in a more focused way, than he would have been able to do in Starfleet. Warp physics is still an interest for him, after all.”

“I knew he would start to figure it out, once he stopped being so anxious.”

“And, I have good news. We’re going to see Robert, Marie and Rene.”

It startled her -- she turned to him as they entered the lift. “When?”

“Well, I had to contact my friend Lewis -- Robert of course has no technology in the house that connects to subspace channels, only local services. Lewis passed along my message to Marie, who went to work on Robert. And then the response had to go to Lewis, and be passed back to me -- they left Earth last week and will be here at the starbase tomorrow.” 

“That must have been a surprise -- aren’t you glad you asked?”

He smiled at her with amusement. “I’m glad you suggested that I ask.”

“The pressure is on -- I wish they’d timed it a little differently. We have five days until the Admiral gets here, at which point I hope to present to her all the information we have regarding Will’s behavior,” Deanna said.

His expression didn’t change, but he inclined his head, curious. “Not the JAG?”

“The admiral is a better choice. She’ll thank me and pass it to the JAG. She likes to be informed.”

“You seem to know things about Nechayev that I do not,” he said as they left the lift and strolled toward the holodeck.

“It must be Betazoid mind magic,” Deanna said dramatically, making finger-waving gestures around her head. 

“Good god, what have I gotten into,” Jean-Luc muttered. His words were almost drowned out by the sound of the doors opening. 

“I approve of what you’ve gotten into lately. Perhaps you’ll get into it again shortly?”

“Okay, making an entrance,” he said with a sigh, almost pleading with her to stop insinuating, stepping across the threshold onto a grassy slope. Deanna pushed past him and approached the table standing in the center of a wooded glen, where the rest of the senior staff already waited for them. 

“It’s about time,” Beverly exclaimed from her seat. She sat with Data, and had an empty seat at her left which Deanna took. Jean-Luc sat on Deanna’s left to complete the circle. The round table was just big enough to give them all elbow room. Mike, Geordi, and Ro completed the circle. 

“Sorry we’re late. We were arguing,” Deanna said. The lie accompanied by a slight scowl from Jean-Luc for doing it made sense to them.

“Giria has a problem with that,” Mike replied. “Must be still half in persona?”

“I must confess that I am extremely curious about your aliases,” Data said. “Having practiced roles in Shakespearean plays and the art of method acting, I am wondering how you prepared for your roles.”

Deanna exchanged a look with Mike; she grinned and picked up her napkin to toss it in her lap. “I created a character that was essentially what I imagined my mother would be like, if she were Klingon.”

The shock was a wave that swept across the table. Then Beverly started to laugh -- and to everyone else’s surprise, Jean-Luc joined her briefly. 

“I haven’t met your mother, but I kind of want to, now,” Mike exclaimed.

"Be careful what you wish for," Jean-Luc said.

Beverly told the computer to serve them dinner, and a holographic waiter brought them all the menu she’d chosen -- she knew them all well. Ro had Bajoran cuisine, Deanna had a mixed meal of Betazoid and Bajoran, and she’d given Jean-Luc steak and potatoes. 

“I haven’t been to an unofficial briefing before,” Ro asked. 

“You should be at this one,” Jean-Luc said, picking up his fork. “You should know what went into getting you back to us.”

Ro stared across the table at him, and Deanna almost tasted the regret and the guilt. 

Sitting up and shifting in her seat, Deanna glanced at Beverly and selected words, carefully. “She does, I think. What she isn’t yet clear about is what it will take to let her finish coming back.”

“What are you saying?”

Deanna smiled sadly. “Anyone who spends time among the people living in the Demilitarized Zone -- anyone who has a heart -- will feel the pull to help them. You want to feed the children, give the parents homes.”

“There have been many criticisms of the creation of the Demilitarized Zone,” Data said. “Do you not agree that war with the Cardassians should be avoided, Deanna?”

Deanna thought about the bridge test, about being selected for the mission, and looked around the table at serious expressions on familiar faces. “I think that there is a difference, between sending ships full of people who took an oath to die in the service of the Federation, and demanding that civilians give up their homes in the service of the Federation. But Admiral Nechayev is not Captain Picard, and she does not take questioning or criticism well. She leans upon her experience, which is limited, instead of using all her resources.”

“If you were so sympathetic then why didn’t you -- “ Ro stopped herself, as the answer was probably obvious enough. 

“Why didn’t I join the Maquis? Why would I join rebels in old ships and limited resources when I can do more staying where I am?”

Ro smirked, and inside she was laughing at Deanna. “What can a counselor do?”

Deanna slipped her hand to Jean-Luc’s thigh, to dig a couple of nails in, to catch him before he defended her. “You want a list? For starters, I can dance, while picking the Starfleet officers out of a crowd. They sit differently than the rest. I can tell when Mike is about to blow his cover, and lose my temper, throw things, cause a bar fight. I can tell when someone is about to say something stupid, and change the conversation. Wars are lost because of conversations.”

“You want me to believe you manipulate people,” Ro said. The disdain was evident. Beverly and Mike now joined Jean-Luc, in the urge to say something, but Deanna stood up, letting her chair be pushed backward a few inches by her legs. The movement forestalled anyone going through with the urge to speak.

“I don’t have to manipulate. Predict and react work well enough.”

“Sit,” Jean-Luc said, and while it wasn’t loud or stern, it was definitely an order. Deanna sat down again. She watched his face, until he turned to look at her.

“I know it’s not that simple,” she said.

“You have deviated from the unofficial briefing protocol,” he said, with a light tone. Trying to get away from the serious.

“Wait, protocol? I didn’t sign up for that,” Geordi exclaimed. “There’s not supposed to be a protocol. What happened to unofficial?”

“I wouldn’t mind seeing the costumes,” Beverly put in. 

Deanna’s turn to laugh -- she shook her head hard enough to send her hair sweeping across her back. This was their way of getting back to the status quo -- she wasn’t interested in stripping, though. "Please, no."

“I don’t think anyone should ask her to return to costume, or the persona,” Mike said.

“I didn’t believe it was appropriate to ask her to adopt the persona in the first place,” Jean-Luc said. “But it made sense from the practical side of things. That she had the initiative to add in the role of a dancer helped protect her from the less appealing aspects of the role.”

“We joked about things like that,” Mike said. “But I knew it was wearing on her. She slept too much. The anger was a little too convincing. And it wasn’t good for an empath, being surrounded by desperate people. She got the brunt of it. I can close my eyes and not see it. There was nowhere for her to hide. And of course, we get picked up by Riker -- the dickwad wouldn’t leave her alone. He probably thinks we’re a thing, now, since I sat around all day in her quarters.”

Deanna was amazed to find that the only person in the room who was surprised was Ro. Geordi didn’t turn his head to look directly at her, but he never had to -- his visor had a near-180 field of vision -- he lowered his head and felt sympathy.

“Captain Riker was not what he appeared to be,” Data said. He had no food in front of him, but had a drink as he sometimes did, to fit in. “I regret that he has caused you distress, Deanna.”

“I’d say distress is an understatement.” Beverly’s quiet rage only grew with every log entry and call she made. “Can we just send a message to every woman in the fleet and get it over with?”

“What are you talking about?” Ro exclaimed, wearing a nervous little smile and glancing from face to face. No one seemed to want to answer.

“They are talking about the things that Will apparently did, that no one reported,” Deanna said quietly. “A lot of women were affected.”

“I guess there’s too much going on right now to expect a party to work,” Beverly said. “I’m sorry.”

“Wait, what are you talking about, things he did?” Ro exclaimed, almost belligerent.

Deanna realized Jean-Luc was looking at her, to see how she reacted to Ro’s defensiveness. She met his gaze for a moment and hoped he understood what she was trying to tell him, and looked across the table at Ro, finally giving up on her half-eaten meal. 

“Will was only a flirt in public. If he managed to get someone alone, he could be more insistent. A few months ago he tried to rape me.”

She paused, waiting for the initial shock to subside at least a little. And Jean-Luc was the worst part of it -- he was furious. She continued to speak calmly as she could, hoping he wouldn't shout about it.

“It occurred to me recently, to ask the question, of whether he’d done anything similar to anyone else. I’ve since discovered there were more than a hundred others aboard who were assaulted in some way, and further requests for personal logs from prior postings have added to that number -- as unbelievable as it was that no one ever reported anything, I haven’t found an indication that complaints were ever made.”

“Wait,” Ro exclaimed, rising from her chair. “You’re saying he -- he’s always flirted with you. He told me once, that you were --”

“None of what he said matters. I didn’t want him to touch me,” Deanna said firmly. “I told him. I had to throw him on the floor to get him to stop.”

“I do not understand why you did not file a complaint,” Data said calmly, with the same mild curiosity as always. 

Deanna felt herself drawing in on herself -- sitting between two pillars of rage, Beverly on her behalf, and Jean-Luc now with a slightly different quality to his anger, which she suspected was partially at her, for not telling him everything.

“This is a matter of sensitivity, for women,” Deanna told Data, hoping it would get through to the more emotional people at the table. “We want to say the Federation worlds don’t experience these problems -- that we’re all safe. We don’t have violent civil wars, on our worlds. We don’t have the rampant assault and murder, any longer. But I can tell you as an empath that there are plenty of men, of many species, who experience urges that can lead to such behavior. It’s a mark of progress that there aren’t more crimes of this nature. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. I’ve had clients who have experienced such things. Women who come forward feel humiliated, because they weren’t able to protect themselves from it. Because so many people assume it doesn’t happen, they doubt -- it’s the last thing someone who’s been assaulted needs to experience, being questioned about how it could have happened in the first place. It starts to feel like they are being blamed for the assault.”

“Will never acted like -- “ Ro gaped for a moment. Her anxiety was flooding her, as she tried to reconcile it. “He just told me yesterday how proud he was to see that you’d been promoted.”

Deanna nodded. “Ro, I tried to take the bridge test last year. I failed the first section and Will never told me I could retake it, so when I asked Data a couple of months ago, and he told me that it was normal to fail at least one of the sections, and I could try again, it was a shock to me. It’s not the only thing he’s done to obstruct my career. And it’s definitely not the only lie he’s ever told -- he’s good at believing his own propaganda so it was hard for me to tell he was lying, sometimes. He’s not proud of me. He’s afraid of me, and he’s doing everything he can to appear to everyone he talks to that he is the opposite of what he is. I have no doubt he's bolstered his case while subtly implying to you that I'm somehow unable to understand, or I'm too emotional.”

“What else has he done to obstruct your career?” Jean-Luc’s hard tone didn’t exactly reassure.

“I know it’s a sore point, but he hasn’t succeeded, has he?” she said with a smile. It helped. He settled down, even mirrored her smile a little. 

“I have a suggestion,” Geordi exclaimed. “You should talk to the ensigns in my department.”

Deanna turned to look at him, as everyone else did -- even Ro. The Bajoran liked the engineer, had had missions with him. Geordi taking Deanna’s claims seriously would probably help Ro accept what she was struggling to understand. 

“Geordi?” Jean-Luc’s tone hinted at chastisement, and Geordi heard it -- he ducked his head and crossed his arms. But he explained.

“I catch them looking distressed. They talk, together, until I approach and then it all goes quiet and formal, and they never tell me -- I’ve asked, a couple of times, what was wrong. I finally started chalking it up to just the usual drama of the young -- but I’ve always thought it was weird that it was always the women, and it wasn’t constant. Never got to the bottom of it. I’ve got to wonder if it has something to do with Will, now, because it hasn’t happened since he left. Everyone seems happy now.”

Deanna knew he felt the same guilt she did. “Geordi, you shouldn’t blame yourself at all -- I had the same thing, I know from the logs that women did not come to talk to me about what happened to them because they believed they couldn’t -- it’s no secret to me that half the ship thought Will and I were in some sort of relationship. They perhaps didn’t realize that he was like that with nearly every woman he ever met if he saw that he could get away with it.”

“He never flirted with me,” Beverly said.

“If we’re being honest I should tell you that’s because he thought you and the captain were having an affair, and Will wasn’t about to get himself in that kind of trouble with the only man aboard who could impact his career,” Deanna said. “I knew better, but I never corrected him, because I knew you would neuter him and send his testicles to the Ferengi consortium, if he tried.”

Beverly’s eyes fell and a moment of internal rearranging took place, and then she looked at Deanna with an apologetic, embarrassed sort of expression. “I haven’t felt comfortable with Will for a long time,” she confessed quietly, her gaze shifting beyond Deanna to Jean-Luc, and onward to Mike’s sympathetic face, and then Data and Geordi. “Remember the play?”

“The one where he played a demented man in an institution? Yes. I remember when he was rehearsing, it was difficult for him to be in the role…. Now I wonder if he was more afraid of the role because it was revealing -- too close to what he really was.”

“You’re all seriously listening to this?” Ro exclaimed, waving her hands in distress, walking around the table slowly. “This is Will Riker you’re talking about! How many times has he risked his life for everyone here?”

Jean-Luc had been slumping, leaning back with crossed arms and sipping wine; he sat up again and looked at Ro. “I have had a similar process, myself, trying to reconcile the behavior with the man I knew. I’m understanding why Deanna didn’t say anything about what he did to her -- because of this. Because she could not face doubt from her friends, could not risk losing our support if we didn’t believe her -- she would end up transferring, and perhaps losing her other friends if they sided with Will. She’s right -- it would be an assumption people would make that she was somehow culpable. I was blamed for things I did while I was assimilated, by people who did not understand the Borg. I’ve been blamed many times, for many things that I was not culpable for, over the years. But I'm not going to let what I thought that Will was blind me to the fact that he was doing something very wrong, hiding it from me, doing it under my nose for years.”

“But -- “

“Ro,” Jean-Luc interrupted harshly, then backed off a little. “Deanna told me some of what’s happened with Will. I talked to him just this morning, and almost let him talk me into believing it was all a misunderstanding when I know that it is not. I know she would never lie about such things. She doesn’t lie to me.”

“I saw him today, too,” Geordi said. “I thought there was something off. He wasn’t quite himself. I figured it was because he’s promoted and gone. I know four pips can make you a little more standoffish and formal.”

Mike took a bite of a piece of pie he’d gotten from the holo-waiter and said nothing.

“Mike?” Deanna said. She sensed he wasn’t saying something, but there was a lot going on -- frustration, mostly.

“No one has any delusions that I’ve ever liked him,” Mike said. “He wrote me up for nothing, not long after I came aboard. He accused me of being too pushy with a lieutenant -- it was bogus, I’ve been married for three years, Sheila Tran had a thing for me, I told her no, next thing I know he’s writing me up. And then there was that thing before he left when he was trying to tell me I was misinterpreting regulations.”

“So why did you not come to me and contest the matter?” Jean-Luc asked.

Mike shrugged and poked his fork into the pie. “He acted like you’re his best friend ever and you’re going to back him up -- he was all about the team, how everyone backs each other up on the _Enterprise_.”

“Oh, no,” Deanna said. Now her stomach started to reject what little she’d eaten.

“Now we’re going to play the game of questioning every decision Will ever made,” Beverly said, her voice vibrating with anger.

“No, that would be my job,” Jean-Luc said with a sigh. “You’re right, Deanna. Telling the admiral first will be the best thing to do -- the next thing I’ll tell her will be that we need at least a month to untangle this mess.”

“I hate time travel, but it’s so tempting,” Deanna muttered. 

“Don’t you start,” Jean-Luc warned. 

Ro now had her arms tightly crossed and was deep in thought, as she stood behind Beverly and swayed slightly side to side. There was a quality to her pensive, angry, and now fearful mood that piqued Deanna’s interest. 

“I’m sorry,” Deanna said sincerely. “I know you considered him a friend, Ro. It’s nothing that we don’t all feel -- it feels wrong, to think of him that way. I spent weeks struggling with this and it’s only now that I’ve found out it wasn’t just me that I started to be really open with everyone.”

Ro gave her a wary, wide-eyed look. 

Deanna frowned, and knew the others were picking up on that tension from her as well. “What did he do to you?” 

The soft question was Counselor Troi at her most sympathetic. Ro was teetering between belief and clinging to what she wanted to believe, that one of the few real friends she’d ever had was innocent of the crimes he’d committed. 

Ro stared at the floor. 

“It’s not your fault,” Beverly said in her soothing tone that came into play with Alexander, sometimes. “Whatever it was. He’s good at making you feel like things are someone else’s fault. Obviously, he’s good at convincing everyone he’s a good friend.”

“If I had been less distant, less isolated,” Jean-Luc began. Deanna frowned at him, and he went quiet. 

“If this had been anything else you wouldn’t waste the time with looking backward at decisions you made -- good people make the best decisions they can make, with the information available at the time. Had a single person lodged a complaint against him you might have chosen a different first officer. It’s everyone, Jean-Luc -- every person he’s ever taken advantage of, thinking it was only a misunderstanding and letting it go, moving on from it. Not your fault.”

He gave her an incredulous look. “So why did you have to drag me through months of counseling before, when you could just tell me it’s not my fault?”

“I had to drag you through it because that’s why you know I’m right, now. Because I’m always right -- never made a mistake in my life.”

Beverly was grinning like Deanna, now, as she added, “Oh, me too. Never make mistakes.”

“I believed that I had made a mistake, at one time,” Data said. “But I was mistaken.”

Deanna gaped in delighted amazement. “Data, you did it! That was funny!”

Geordi and the others started to laugh after the same moment of shock that Deanna had experienced, and then it was okay -- things were as they should have been in an unofficial briefing. Because they were always about reconnecting with friends. Mike leaned and slapped the android on the shoulder in appreciation of the joke. 

Then Data was trying to explain the joke, why it was funny, and Beverly shifted the topic to her plan to stage one of the newer plays written by a famous playwright who had spent time in Starfleet. Deanna let things play out from there and watched Ro -- the Bajoran returned to her seat and continued to ruminate. 

As the event came to a close and people started to leave, Deanna stood and waited for Jean-Luc to finish talking to Geordi and Data, leaning against the wall near the control panel. Beverly gave her a sympathetic look and moved on out of the holodeck. Then Ro came over slowly, her arms still crossed, and hesitated.

“I think I need an appointment,” she said quietly. 

“For counseling? You do have a choice -- Sarah Cameron is a good counselor. I know I’ve not always been your favorite person.”

Ro looked her in the eye -- licking her lips and shrugging, she gathered her resolve. “I think that’s why I need to talk to you. Because I need to -- get past it. He -- remember the time we lost our memories and the Satarrans tried to use us in their war?”

“Yes, I remember it well.”

“He used to -- we would get together, sometimes….”

“I know,” Deanna said quietly.

“You didn’t mind,” Ro said, losing a lot of the tension.

“I don’t reveal what I sense, for a lot of reasons, and I never felt any jealousy because I haven’t any real interest in him. I haven’t for years -- attraction and flirting and all the things he would say, I knew that he didn’t feel….” Deanna considered it for a moment. “It took me a long time, while I was in Starfleet and among many people, many couples, to really understand what it was to be loved. It’s not the same with Betazoids. I grew up on a planet of telepaths who politely shielded themselves and my father died before I could ever sense what he and my mother had. Once I understood it, I couldn’t go back to Will -- he felt lust, desire, all kinds of things, none of it was what he said it was. So no, I didn’t mind anything you did with him. I was aware of his attention to many women, not just you. As long as it was consensual I didn’t care. I usually deliberately distracted myself, in fact, started to develop better shielding.”

“I think -- “ Ro couldn’t address it here, and Deanna smiled sympathetically.

“I’m not officially on duty yet. But come see me tomorrow, at eleven hundred hours. All right?”

“Okay.” Ro nodded and bit her lip, looking away. “Deck eight?”

“Yes. See you tomorrow.”

She went out the doors, which were standing open, and Geordi wasn’t far behind. He put a hand on Deanna’s shoulder and unexpectedly gave her a kiss on the cheek before he left. Data said a quiet good night and left without delay. 

And then Jean-Luc collected her in an arm, and walked her out of the holodeck. “Everything all right?”

“I think it’s starting to be. I might manage to make friends with Ro, finally.”

“The one thing I’ve come to count on more than most is your ability to help us make emotional repairs,” Jean-Luc said, as they entered the lift. “I’d never had that kind of help before. I appreciate you now, more than ever, because I don’t think I would have ever known -- thank you, Deanna.”

Deanna hugged him and let his appreciation and love soothe her jangled nerves and her dread for the confrontation with Will that would surely come, once they actually involved Starfleet. “I’m doing what I know you would expect. Also what I know needs to be done. And it’s helping me to know you’re supporting me, because I’m sure there are a lot of people who will do as Ro did, at first.”

Wesley was coming out of their quarters as they approached. “I just got him to get ready for bed -- we went hang gliding. It’s a little too tame for him, I think, unless we start staging air battles with the gliders.”

“Perhaps I’ll start teaching you both aerial acrobatics -- there’s more to skydiving than just jumping out and falling,” Deanna said. “And I’ll bet he would love to try a wingsuit. Thanks for watching him, Wes.”

“No problem. It’s fun -- he’s a great kid. Good night.” Wes went down the corridor toward his quarters, which were next door to Beverly’s.

“So are you going to argue with me some more?” Deanna asked, as they went into the living room and she turned toward the bedroom.

“Take it up with me in the morning. I may be a miracle of modern medicine, but I’m afraid there are certain realities.”

“You moved all my things. Where did you put my toys?”

She turned around and he came to a halt in front of her. “Toys?” he asked, not feigning confusion.

“I’m having a little difficulty believing that you didn’t notice a drawer full of sex toys, Jean-Luc.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t move everything -- there were several ensigns that did most of the work.”

“Well, I suppose you’ll just have to use your hands,” she said. Then sighed. “Unless, of course, you don’t want to. I shouldn’t be demanding, I hope you don’t take it that way, if I express my desire for you.”

He wasn’t accustomed to open conversations such as this, she could tell. He went through a moment of negotiating with himself, first to calm down and then to sort out what he felt about this. 

“I think I am not yet accustomed to being… desired, so I appreciate the clarification. But I’m trying to avoid much analysis, of that part of the relationship, it seems to be going well enough.”

“Analysis,” she echoed, amused and giving him a sly look. “I suppose that must mean you’re thinking about it a lot. That sounds normal enough to me, I think about it often myself.”

“I’ve read about this sort of thing, you know,” he said as he started to pull off his shirt and head for the left side of the bed. Now he was being pedantic, to make her laugh. Also to change the subject. “Love appears to be an overwhelming motivator for people. Sex is often a part of it.”

Deanna pulled the combs free of her hair, tugged the dress upward and off, and stepped out of her sandals. “I think I’ve read that somewhere, too.”

“I might even be talked into -- well, there are customs. It may sound strange. But it appears that buying gifts is a common one.”

She went to pull down the covers and sit, reaching back to unfasten the bra. “You’re going to buy me gifts? That sounds nice. Strange, as you say, but nice.”

A flat burgundy box slid forward along her thigh. She turned -- he was pretending he hadn’t done anything, sitting there slowly removing a shoe, but she could tell he was quite pleased with himself. 

“Jean-Luc,” she exclaimed, picking up the box. He said nothing. When she opened the box she found a necklace. It appeared to be diamonds, and she thought it looked old.

“I’ve had that in my safe for years. It belonged to my mother.”

She ran her fingers over the stones and carefully closed the box. “It’s beautiful. Thank you,” she said softly. 

“I think we can find an occasion for you to wear them,” he said. “I thought we might have a formal dinner, when Robert and Marie are here. We used to do that as a family from time to time. Aunt Adele and her family would come over, and Maman would wear her best dress.”

Deanna held the slim box between her hands and closed her eyes, and a few tears escaped. She tried to breathe deeply, quietly, and not float off into space on the happiness she felt.

“Deanna?”

“I think you might be able to make me happier,” she said, grinning, “but I’m not really sure how it would be possible.”

“That sounds like a challenge to me.” 

She looked over her shoulder at him, and saw the grin she knew was there. “I might have some inkling of how much you enjoy a challenge.”

“Excellent,” he said softly, getting into bed. “Well, it’s cold in here -- what are you doing all the way over there?”


	27. Clash of the Captains

Beverly arrived for breakfast with Wesley, and Deanna suspected that they would need a bigger dining table if this continued. Jean-Luc emerged in uniform, didn’t even blink at the young man’s presence, and the conversation this morning revolved around Alexander’s extracurricular activities and random things happening around the ship. Alexander had quite a network of people in his life, between the school and his varying interests. Deanna wished Worf hadn’t been so closed to the idea of his son being more active in many activities. Being busy was helping him almost as much as her short sessions teaching him how to breathe his way through the anxiety and anger that still plagued him.

Wesley took Alexander to school, at Alexander’s request -- he wanted to introduce him to his teacher. There was a little hero worship starting now, since Wes had been talking about his experiences on the ship that Alexander had been too young to understand before. 

“What time do they arrive today?” Beverly asked, moving from the table to the couch with her coffee while Deanna disposed of dishes. 

“Per the schedule, around sixteen hundred,” Jean-Luc replied. He’d clearly shared his family’s visit with the doctor. 

“How old is Rene?” Deanna asked. 

Jean-Luc had to stop and think for a moment. “He should be ten, I think.”

“That’s younger than I expected. Isn’t Robert older than you are?” Beverly asked.

“Apparently we’re late bloomers,” Jean-Luc said with a shrug and a fond glance at Deanna. “According to Marie, Robert was fairly well known for his adventures with women. In between his adventures in fine wine making.”

“I remember when you came back from your visit home, how fondly you spoke about Rene -- he must take after Marie,” Deanna said. She picked up a cup of coffee from the replicator and went to join them, sitting on the couch next to Jean-Luc. 

“I was about to get my photo album, but for that you can live with the curiosity instead of seeing for yourself how handsome the young Picard boys were.”

“What happened to the young man you mentioned, that the Ferengi was threatening?” Deanna asked.

At that, Beverly sat forward a little, her curiosity greater than Deanna’s. Jean-Luc didn’t want to talk about it -- he sighed, shook his head, and appeared to be looking across the room at the bookshelf.

“So did it resolve?”

“The authorities on Camor held him for a while, and researched the matter -- there didn’t seem to be any immediate threat and I didn’t want to take the ship away while you were still gone. So I arranged to have him transferred to Starfleet custody, and he’s on his way to meet us here.”

“Did you have a DNA comparison run, as I suggested?” Beverly asked. 

“Yes, and he was willing to do that -- he seemed unenthusiastic about it, but he consented.”

Deanna knew it was upsetting for him, to the point that he wasn’t really thinking about it clearly. On top of Will’s behavior, and the effect it had on her, and family coming, it surprised her that he was as calm as he was -- he must have been a mess while she was gone. She sipped coffee and watched him with compassionate eyes.

“Have you spoken with his mother?” Beverly asked quietly. 

“Miranda is dead,” he said flatly. “She evidently set up a small school, on Camor Five. She was killed by street thugs.”

“How long ago did you get this message from the Ferengi?” Deanna asked.

“The week before you contacted me. We’d just arrived at Dorvan, we couldn’t divert.”

Deanna frowned at it, and glanced at Beverly. “Why hasn’t he done anything, then? You said he threatened to kill this young man, that was almost two weeks ago, and he’s done nothing?”

Jean-Luc’s forehead wrinkled as the thought process engaged. “That’s a good question. Why wait until we were able to bring him into Starfleet custody?”

“I think he was bait. Camor isn’t much different than the planet I was just on -- a mining colony, on the fringes of the Federation. If the Daimon could lure you out to him, you might turn into the actual target.”

He stared into his coffee while considering the possibilities. “I have to wonder if you might be right.”

“Strange, how you didn’t think about that,” Beverly said softly. 

“Then again, Ferengi aren’t known for logic and rational thinking,” Deanna said. “He might also have intended for the boy himself to be the aggressor. He has a record.” Now both of them stared at her in surprise. She shrugged. “I did five minutes of research yesterday. It gave me a break from listening to log entries telling me how stupid I was to ever let Will Riker lay a hand on me.”

“If I don’t get to do that, you don’t either,” he scolded. And that faded, as she gave him that look right back. “Fine. I’ll try to get past this.”

“Miranda should have told you a long time ago, if she wanted you to feel guilt,” Deanna exclaimed. “She obviously decided, for reasons we’ll never know, that she didn’t want you involved. Or anyone else -- there’s nothing in her records that shows she ever married, or resided with anyone other than the children she took in and her son. Which leads me to another question -- how the hell does a Ferengi find out about a son that isn’t associated with you in any way whatsoever, when there’s absolutely nothing in your records connecting you to Miranda Vigo?”

Now he leaned away from her slightly. “Why have you not been joining me on the holodeck more often?” he exclaimed belligerently. 

“I have enough critical thinking to do during the day -- I don’t need to go pretend to be some private dickhead,” she said with a mercenary grin.

“That’s ‘private dick’ -- which is slang for private investigator,” Beverly said, barely stifling her giggles. “And the women in his scenarios are usually not the ones doing all the detective work, anyway.”

Deanna waved a hand to dismiss it. “Dickhead, dickwad, Dixon, whatever -- Terran slang is ridiculous. In any case, I think there’s more to this son of yours than meets the eye, and I’m looking forward to interrogating him.” At Jean-Luc's dubious raised eyebrow, she amended, "Questioning him, pleasantly, with Betazoid mind magic."

“Bridge to Troi,” came Mike’s voice over the comm. 

“Troi here.”

“You’re getting lots of calls -- been routing them into your inbox to leave messages. But I think you should know some of these ladies might be venting in his direction, too, because he’s called twice so far asking to talk to you -- he sounded pretty angry, and he’s refusing to leave messages.”

“Commander, the next time he calls for her, route it to me,” Jean-Luc exclaimed. “Put a block in the computer to keep him from contacting her directly, if you would.”

“Aye, sir,” Mike said, not sounding a bit surprised at the call being co-opted by him.

“Jean-Luc,” she said with a hint of chastisement.

“I don’t know if anyone would contact him,” Beverly said. “I think it must be something else.”

“I know what it is. The last thing I did yesterday before dinner was to send my own complaint, directly to Admiral Nechayev. The first thing she would do would be to call Will. I’m going to give her everyone else’s when I meet with her.”

Jean-Luc put a hand on her shoulder. It was something he’d done before, over the years, but it was also different -- his hand lingered there, instead of falling away again after giving her a brief, comforting squeeze. “Deanna?”

“What he did to me wasn’t traumatizing, at least not to the point that I had flashbacks. But it was disturbing enough to keep me from really thinking everything through,” she said. “The admiral called him and did what she does, most likely. The next -- “

“Bridge to Troi. I have Admiral Nechayev waiting to speak to you.”

“There we go,” Deanna said. “You’re both late for work, you know?”

Beverly took the hint, and left her mug of coffee on the table when she headed out. “Come see me later,” she called back before the door closed in her wake.

Jean-Luc didn’t move an inch. 

“All right, but only because it’s you,” Deanna murmured. She tapped her badge. “Troi here -- put her through, please, Mike, audio only.”

“Commander?” Nechayev’s voice rang out in the room with the indignation of a really angry admiral. 

“I gather you have received my accusation against Captain Riker,” Deanna said.

“I did. I have to question why you waited so long to make it.” 

Jean-Luc’s tension rivalled her own -- Deanna tried a deep breath, and ignored the way her stomach wanted to reject the coffee. “I spent a long time debating whether I should, or whether I should let it go -- I don’t have to see him again, after all. It was confusing and -- I considered him a friend, before. It was hard for me to grasp the scope of it, for a while. I know that people will look at me and question why someone with a stellar career and no trouble finding willing partners would do such a thing, why I hesitated to speak up, and why…. Admiral, I found out that I was not his only victim. I had a prior relationship with him, and he was trying to convince me to pick up where we left off, so I made an assumption that it was irrational desperation… but of course, that was my irrational reaction to being assaulted, trying to avoid the fallout of trying to press charges.”

“What do you mean, you weren’t his only victim?” Nechayev snapped.

Deanna nodded slowly. The admiral might calm down and have some sympathy, but it would not be until she got all the facts. “An analysis of personal logs of _Enterprise_ ’s personnel, conducted anonymously by the computer, resulted in a list of more than a hundred victims of harassment and non-violent assault. None of the victims reported anything -- he either intimidated them or the victim had the impression that a complaint would not be heard, because it’s been assumed that since Will was friends with the senior staff, none of them would look into the matter. The captain has been personally apologizing to the victims who have responded to our request for more information.”

A long, tense silence passed slowly. Nechayev, when she spoke again, had calmed down quite a lot. “Deanna,” she said, with less anger but obvious tension, and just a hint of sympathy. “I am sorry, that this has happened to you.”

“He has been acting as though it never happened. Acting as if I am still a friend. I suppose it makes sense, in a way. What else would he do to convince others he’s innocent? There is a medical record from that night -- he went to sickbay and told them he was sparring with Worf, and was hit in the face. So if I say that I defended myself he has that alibi, since Worf is now dead and cannot confirm or deny it.”

Jean-Luc felt a sudden jolt of interest, at that, and looked at her expectantly. She blinked at him and waited for the admiral’s response.

“The matter will be investigated fully, I assure you. If there are others -- I am sorry, Commander, for my initial anger. I have never heard of such a case before -- there hasn’t been a rape accusation in Starfleet for more than a hundred years. It was a shock to me, that a decorated officer -- I will be contacting your captain today, as well as the Judge Advocate General’s office. There will be a representative of the JAG at the starbase -- expect to hear from him.”

“I will cooperate fully, Admiral. I am currently off duty and available to meet with him. I would like to speak to him as soon as possible to have an injunction filed -- Captain Riker is trying to contact me despite my repeated requests for him to stop.”

“Unacceptable,” Nechayev snapped. “You will be hearing from the JAG shortly. Necheyav, out.”

After the chirp of a closing channel, Deanna fell against Jean-Luc, pushing herself against his shoulder as his arm went around her. She almost had her stomach calmed and her breathing even again, when the annunciator went off. Rather than continuing to float in peaceful communion with him, she shifted her attention and at once, the coffee threatened again to reappear.

“It’s him,” she exclaimed, her heart in her throat. Will was furious, more so than she’d ever sensed from him before, and she couldn’t catch her breath. 

It didn’t help that Jean-Luc immediately reacted by leaping up, dislodging her, and going to the door. 

“Don’t,” she pleaded. “He isn’t worth it.”

Jean-Luc touched the door panel, and it opened. Will stood there with fury written all over his face -- upon seeing Jean-Luc he changed, mouth opening, fists unclenching, his shoulders going back slightly as his entire demeanor loosened and he regrouped. 

“Jean-Luc,” he said, sounding almost normal. 

“Leave her alone.” It was obvious Jean-Luc was angry, but he remained calm, so the demand wasn’t an impassioned one. “Go back to your ship and stop bothering her.”

“Look, this is all a gigantic misunderstanding,” Will said, holding up his hands as if it would appease his former captain. 

“It’s a matter for investigation, now, and you know better than to think anything you do here will help your case. Leave.”

Will actually smiled, and looked like he understood completely, actually like he was sympathizing. He leaned slightly in. “I realize this is difficult to believe -- “

“Take that step inside this door, and I will be forced to call security and ban you from this vessel.”

“You wouldn’t do that. It’s all right, Jean-Luc, I’m sure you feel you need to keep up the appearance of -- “

Will’s foot crossed the boundary and Jean-Luc was in motion -- Deanna didn’t see any backswing, somehow his fist went from hanging at his side to Will’s face and made enough of an impact to send the taller man flying backward. Then Jean-Luc stood in the door, chest heaving, his fists at the ready and glaring. 

“Picard to security,” he intoned angrily. “Send a team to my quarters -- I have a trespasser that requires eviction.”

“On our way,” Mike responded promptly. 

“Oh, come on,” Will exclaimed, rising to his feet -- Jean-Luc grabbed the front of his uniform and shoved, and followed up with a fist to Will’s stomach. He went down with a thump and Jean-Luc backed in the door to stand sentry while Will moaned.

Deanna drew up her feet and sat cross-legged, arranging her skirt over her knees, and watched -- she had only a partial view of the corridor, from this angle, but she could see Will picking himself up off the floor. She sensed his fury -- waves of frustration, that this wasn’t going well, and the beginning of fear. Panic, actually. This was a narcissistic psychopath starting to realize that his plan had not only failed, it was sinking into a black hole and beyond redemption, and that would cause a major breakdown. It was a measure of how arrogant he was, that it took this long for that to happen.

And, for the first time in her life as a counselor, she found herself not caring, at all. 

“Jean-Luc,” Will exclaimed with a note of pleading -- and then Mike’s voice.

“Come with us, Captain.”

“Back off,” Will exclaimed in his ringing command voice. 

“Terwilliger, Gant, let’s do this,” Mike said sternly. 

“Get him off the ship, I don’t give a damn where you send him,” Jean-Luc exclaimed. “Keep him off.”

“Understood, sir. Don’t make this harder than it has to be, Captain.”

There was a commotion in the corridor, but Jean-Luc stepped back and the door closed. He gazed at her with the indignance of Captain Picard, defied, and then an amazing change came over him. His expression softened and he approached slowly. 

“I know you wouldn’t want me to risk reprimand. But he was trespassing, after all.”

“I hope he doesn’t hurt anyone,” she said. “He’s starting to decompensate.”

“I’m going to the bridge. Are you all right?” He sat and put his hand over hers, on her knee. 

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Don’t do more today than you can handle. We’re going to meet with Robert and Marie later, I’d prefer you enjoyed yourself than spend the time with all of this in the back of your brain.”

“Okay. See you later.”

He leaned to kiss her cheek and departed at a rapid walk, no doubt predicting the admiral’s call -- she’d had more than enough time to talk to the local JAG office.

“Computer, how many new messages waiting in my box?”

“One hundred forty-four new messages.” 

“If there are any from Captain Riker, please forward a copy to Captain Picard and archive in folder Riker.”

“Four new messages moved.”

“Access the first unheard message responding to the message I sent yesterday afternoon.”

The voice -- young, female, nervous -- stammered and stuttered out a surprised reply, and she recognized an ensign she’d had in for sessions just a couple of months ago. Sharon McMasters. She was still in operations on the _Enterprise_. Deanna let herself curl up on the couch, pulling over a pillow for her head, and listened to Sharon’s desire to provide all the information Deanna needed to ‘send the fucking bastard away for good.’ She had attached to the message her formal complaint, regarding an event that took place three years before.

“Computer, forward the attached complaint to folder Complaints. Play next message.”

The annunciator interrupted the third message while she listened, and she sat up and let in the chief of security. He gave her a smile, showing off his black eye.

"Oh, don't look at me like that," Mike said. "It was fun. I'm on my way to sickbay. So is he, probably, just some other sickbay not on the _Enterprise_. Dickhead got saucy on me, trying to pull rank."

"Michael Wayne McCormick," she said with a sigh. "I hope you kicked his ass."

The smile went to a wicked grin. "All the way from deck eleven to the transporter room, in the lift, in the corridor. He's not getting back here again, Deanna."

"Thank you, Mike."

"Gonna bring Leila up to meet you when she gets here tomorrow. See you later." Mike left at a slower pace than expected, and appeared to be limping. 

Deanna decided that tea and a change of location were warranted. While water ran in the tub, she replicated chamomile, and peeled off the long-sleeved house dress she'd put on that morning. Once immersed in steamed water that smelled of lavender, she resumed playback and listened to Amanda Grant's account of having a hand slide down her ass in the middle of an inspection. 

"Computer, forward the attached complaint to folder Complaints. Play next message."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's an old nitpick of mine, that starship captains seemed to be given free rein to just take their ship and all their crew haring off after some personal issue or another. I mean, you don't see submarines, aircraft carriers, helicopters or police cars taking off any time some sergeant has to pick up a sick child from daycare, or the bastard child of some mistress is in trouble. The officers have to take time off, buy a plane ticket or drive their personal car, and take care of their personal business on their own damn time.
> 
> Jason can come see 'dad' on his own time.


	28. The Nearly Traumatic Truth

When the annunciator chimed again, it was nearly eleven hundred hours. Deanna had put on her uniform instead of returning to civilian clothing, despite being on leave. She fastened the clip in her hair and left the bedroom. “Come in.”

It wasn't surprising that it wasn't Ro -- she sensed that much. She'd wondered if Ro might waver and decide not to come -- apparently, she'd been right. She made a mental note to contact Ro later in the day.

A gentleman in a captain’s uniform strode in, stiff and giving her a slight bow. “Commander Deanna Troi?”

“Yes?”

“I am Captain Kodara Ren, from the Quadrant Legal Services Office. Admiral Nechayev sent me to speak to you about a situation involving yourself and Captain William Riker.”

“Please, have a seat. Would you care for anything to drink?”

“No, thank you.” Instead of going to the couch, he went to the table and sat down, setting down a padd he held. She followed him, taking a chair at an angle from him, not quite on the other side of the round table. He smiled at her -- a formality, the smile not reaching his eyes. He was Trill, she realized, with the typical pattern of spots across the forehead and down the sides of his face. But not a joined Trill -- she didn’t sense the symbiont.

“You live with your captain,” he said, with the inflection that said it was really a question.

“I’m not certain how that is relevant.”

“It isn’t, to the case at hand, but I think you may be able to see that the defense may attempt to pretend that it is. It would help me to understand the timeline of events.”

Deanna didn’t sense anything unusual in him. He was calm, focused, detached -- nothing stood out to her as being out of line. She folded her hands in her lap and nodded. “I have been on a mission, for the past month. When I returned I took up residence here. The captain was caring for my foster son, in my absence. We had been spending an increasing amount of time with each other, since the death of Alexander’s father in the line of duty. It was a logical progression.”

“And you are the ship’s counselor, since about stardate 41153?”

“Yes, and I was his personal counselor until a little more than a year ago.”

“Were you also Captain Riker’s personal counselor?” Ren made notes on his padd as he asked.

“Never. Ethics prohibit me from attempting a therapeutic relationship with someone who was a sexual partner of mine, in the past. We were engaged when he was a lieutenant and I was a student at the University of Betazed. He failed to attend our wedding. I did not see him again until we met upon being assigned to the _Enterprise_. I encouraged him to seek counseling when I felt it was needed with one of my assistant counselors, but he never did so.”

Ren made a few more notes, and looked up at her. “Were you ever sexually intimate with Riker, while he was first officer of this vessel?”

“No.” She tried not to let her disgust at the thought show.

“You seem upset. Please answer fully. Commander, I’m here to represent you, and the more information I have, the easier that will be -- normally I would assign you one of my staff. But the admiral made it clear that this is a sensitive case and so I opted to take it myself.”

Deanna tried to set aside the disgust she felt, thinking about Will. “Commander Riker and I agreed that we should keep our relationship professional, when he reported for duty. He would at times act as though we had never made that agreement. I refused him. I don’t believe a casual sexual relationship with another officer is appropriate.”

Ren glanced around at the immaculate room they were in.

“My relationship with Captain Picard is not and has never been what I would call casual,” Deanna said. “Will Riker wanted me to engage in sexual intercourse without commitment. He has had a long habitual flirtation with women -- members of the crew, members of other crews, women he has met while we have been on missions. He rarely showed any inclination to attach himself to anyone -- I am the ship’s counselor and I know well enough the ramifications of such behavior on my own duties. I can’t afford to be in sexual relationships with clients, or with people who are very likely to become clients.”

“So you are saying you might have considered intercourse with Riker, if you had had a committed relationship with you, or the intent to have one.”

“If I wanted such a relationship, yes. I never have, while aboard. He never has, until a few months ago when the incident occurred. He was trying to convince me we should marry. I told him no, but he -- “

“Just a moment, Commander. We’ll get there. I know it’s a disturbing memory for you, I’d rather go through it once and not subject you to multiple repetitions. Back to the original point -- you never had sex with him, and never wanted to, while you both served here on _Enterprise_. How would you characterize your relationship with him while he was first officer?”

Deanna smiled sadly. “I became fond of him, as I have of a few people aboard. Good friends. Almost like a big brother sometimes, he could be protective. But, as I look back at it now, I realize that wasn’t exactly what I assumed it was. It started to feel… controlling. I was spending a lot of time with Worf -- he was our chief of security -- and his son, Alexander. Worf was a very good friend, and I was helping him with learning to parent his son, as a counselor. Alexander was with his mother for the first years of his life, and when she died he came here -- Worf wasn’t ready for fatherhood and had constant power struggles with Alexander. Unknown to me, Worf went to Will and asked him his advice -- Worf wanted to pursue a more intimate relationship with me. Will told him that he didn’t believe that would be a good idea.”

Ren set aside his padd and stared at her. Surprised. “Will Riker told a man he shouldn’t pursue a relationship with you? Did you know about this?”

“Absolutely not,” Deanna exclaimed. “I only found out because Alexander knew about it, and mentioned it. His father -- one of the things that was so difficult, about the situation, was Worf’s trouble with understanding that he couldn’t share everything with a child. When Worf died -- “

Unexpectedly, the sadness rose to choke her. She took a minute, hand to mouth, to compose herself. Ren waited patiently, compassion in his narrow face.

“There have been a few men that I have thought I might… it was as usual, in these matters, most of the time. Relationships end due to career conflicts, or they just don’t work out. Will usually had an opinion on mine as well. I was engaged, at one point, and Will -- he was very, very unhappy, cold, unpleasant. The wedding was canceled. He always turned cold to me, when I showed signs of having feelings for another man. Yet he continued to seek relationships with other women.”

“So he’s always been possessive of you despite his… flirtations with other women. Interesting. Did this have an impact on these other relationships you had?”

“Not always.” She thought about it for a moment. “He would act as though he supported me, but it became obvious that underneath it he didn’t approve.”

“In what way was it obvious?”

“I’m an empath. I can sense emotions -- as I’ve gained more experience and developed more control over my abilities, I can better interpret what I sense and I’m not so easily overwhelmed with the emotions of others, any more. I haven’t had a long string of relationships as he has. The last one… well, it was more than a year ago. And then I -- “ She smiled, sadly. “I started to have feelings for Jean-Luc. I decided that I would continue as I have been, as ship’s counselor, with Captain Picard. Because I believed he wouldn’t return my feelings. And then when I sensed that he did, I believed he would never approach me. I have seen him walk away from potential relationships to continue unencumbered in his career before. But he thought, as so many did, that Will and I might be…. I surprised him. I told him, when Will started to act in ways that impacted my duties, because he would want to know as the captain. It started to show in his conduct when he became angry at me. He started to have sex with Katherine Ruan, a lieutenant in operations, at a time that he knew I would be awake and able to sense him.”

That completely took him aback. Ren’s head jerked up from his rapid note-taking. “Commander… you are telling me that Will Riker started a sexual relationship with someone so that you would sense him doing it?”

“Most crew assigned to alpha shift observe the same schedule. Off duty, dinner, socializing, and going to bed -- whether to have sex before sleep, or to sleep. There are quite a few couples aboard, on a ship this size. I was quite regular in observing my set bedtime unless there was a red alert or a critical mission in progress, and if I’m asleep, I don’t sense anything. He was on a schedule of his own, very similar to mine, until I fought him off and he became angry, and then he reversed the order of his activities -- sex, then dinner, then socializing, then bedtime. Since his quarters were down the corridor in the next section from me, I took to spending time immediately after shift with a friend, in Ten Forward, until he was done with his fuckbuddy. I would be returning to my quarters for a late dinner, and he would be coming out of his -- he would give me a cold stare, as he walked by toward the lift with Kathy. It wasn’t bothering me before I knew who it was, and it didn’t bother me after. It was between two consenting adults -- I didn’t care. I can do work on a padd in Ten Forward just as easily as in quarters.”

“Who have you told about all of this?”

“My friend, Dr. Crusher. My captain. The rest of the senior staff know the basics of the situation with him, out of necessity. I was picked up at the end of an undercover operation by Captain Riker's vessel, and our security chief, who was on the mission with me, stayed with me to keep Will away. The security chief had to intervene again today when Will attempted to come in here. The captain threw him out and called security, and banned him from the ship. I never talk about my life with anyone aboard, in any detail. I have counseling relationships with too many people for that to be appropriate.”

Ren spent a few more minutes entering notes. Then he depressed a control, set the padd on the table between them, and Deanna saw the glowing red indicator that said an audio recording was being made. “Tell me about the rape itself. How it happened. When it happened.”

Deanna hesitated, raising her head. Jean-Luc was on his way home.

“Commander?”

“Just a moment, please.”

The door opened then, and Ren turned to look up at the captain. Jean-Luc hesitated.

“This is Captain Ren. He’s taking my statement. Captain, this is Captain Jean-Luc Picard.”

Ren stood and took the hand offered. “An honor to meet you, sir. I would like to meet with you when we’re done?”

“Of course. You may speak with any member of the crew you deem necessary, as well.” He glanced at her, and she smiled fondly.

“I’m fine,” she said warmly. “I was about to tell him all the details, of the rape attempt.”

Jean-Luc went through a moment of consideration, fraught with anxiety on her behalf, and wavered.

“If you would like to stay, have a seat.” She waved at the chair behind her.

It shocked both of them. Ren glanced back and forth between them.

Deanna smiled at her captain. “I feel less disturbed by this than I did by your experience with the Borg. It may be more difficult for you, than for me.”

Jean-Luc moved around her to seat himself and crossed his arms. Deanna glanced at him, and nodded to Ren.

“All right,” Ren said, sitting down again and pressing a few keys, to reset the padd, she assumed. “Tell me about Captain Riker attempting to rape you.”

“He had been asking me to come to his quarters for a few weeks, to talk to him. I refused, and continued to interact with him as usual on duty, and if he approached me off duty I would avoid him, or make certain he would not be able to catch me alone.”

“You sensed his intent?” Ren asked.

“I did, and also, he continued to try, in spite of my questioning what he wanted and telling him we could meet in my office, or his, if it were a matter of duty. He denied that it was, so I continued to avoid him.”

“Until?”

Deanna could feel her lip curling, in disgust. “He finally told me that he wanted to discuss our relationship. That he wanted to make me dinner. I told him I wouldn’t. He said to come if I changed my mind. I decided that, because he had been a friend and fellow officer for so long, because we had mutual friends who were so close, I would try again to set him straight -- convince him that I didn’t feel that way about him. I’d tell him I had feelings for someone else, if that was what it took, because I did. I would make it absolutely clear that I had respect for him, but I was not in love with him, and I wouldn’t ever be again.”

Her hand went to her stomach. Between her disgust and anguish, and Jean-Luc’s similar feelings, her pit of voles was back and squirming.

“When I came in the door he was standing there, grinning, holding out an engagement ring. I backed away. I almost left. But I didn’t, because as I said, I didn’t want to lose friendships. I pushed the ring back -- away from me. I said no, that while I cared about him, I couldn’t marry him, and I was about to begin a longer explanation of why but he grabbed me by the shoulders and started to kiss me. He’s taller, stronger, and I was shocked for a few seconds so I froze -- and when I tried to pull away, he came closer and put his arms around me. So I threw him.”

“Threw… You threw Captain Riker?”

“I have been practicing mok’bara with our security chief for years. I used one of the techniques I learned to throw him over my shoulder, to the floor. He became enraged, jumped to his feet, grabbed the front of my jacket -- he tore it open and started to pull my shirt up. He tried to pull my pants down. So I threw an elbow into his stomach, punched him in the face, and used my foot to sweep his leg out from under him, and when he went down I ran to my quarters and locked the door.”

"You said he was angry at you, when he started to tear at your clothing."

"Will and I had been engaged, as I told you," Deanna said. "He said, that night, that he wanted to deepen the bond between us. We had been so close before that I could share thoughts, with him. I was so young then, naive, easily overwhelmed by feelings -- I sensed as he was tearing off my uniform that he was thinking about that, but it was different. I'm more capable than I was at twenty. I could tell that what was really arousing for him was control. He enjoyed tearing off my jacket. He was frustrated that I was protesting, but he kept telling me it would be better than it was before, that our bond would be stronger -- I think he believes that if he had sex with me, there would be the bond, again, and I would be as easily overwhelmed as before. I would be suggestible, pliant, and he would be able to dominate me. He doesn't quite comprehend how wrong he was, because I haven't told him that it didn't even work that way the first time."

"You assumed all that from what you sensed?"

She shook her head. "He kept saying that I should just enjoy myself, let him make me happy -- keep me safe, keep me sated. Let him take care of me. Let him into my mind." Her stomach turned, at the memory.

Ren smiled, encouraging and sympathetic. “And did he come after you?”

“He tried. I told the computer to ignore him, and went to bed.”

“You just went to sleep?”

“Oh, no. I lay there all night trying to think about the consequences -- what would happen if I told everyone? What would happen if I pressed charges, what would happen if I told the captain? Well -- I knew that. I knew Captain Picard would investigate. He’d be angry, and protective, and press charges. At the very least, he’d get a new first officer. I also debated whether anyone would believe me at all, because no one knew at the time that he had assaulted anyone else. His record is stellar.”

Ren regarded her with an open mouth for a long moment. “No one knew at the time -- you are aware now, of other incidents?”

“Computer, forward the contents of my folder, Complaints, to Captain Kodara Ren.”

He held up his padd, which started to make lighthearted chittering noises announcing the arrival of many new messages.

“Over the past two days I have, with the help of the computer, located more than a hundred women who logged distressing encounters with Will Riker. I only got so far as to contact those from the _Enterprise_ and the _Hood_ , his prior posting. Nearly all of the women I contacted have submitted formal complaints, and are willing to testify against him. They all had different reasons for not reporting his behavior, of course, but many were afraid to, since he bragged about being so friendly with his commanding officers that they were given the impression their complaint would not be taken seriously, especially if there were no physical evidence of wrongdoing.”

Ren tapped a few times and read something for a moment. He lowered the padd. “Why did you go looking for these?”

“Because I was trying to decide whether I should come forward or not, and it occurred to me that he might have more than one victim. I thought about how cold he would have to be, to take up with a woman to get back at me. As it turns out, he was right -- no one believed he would ever do such a thing. Many of the women thought they were the only one he’d assaulted. Too many believed him when he confessed to them it was a mistake. He made a habit of apologizing profusely to them, telling them they were irresistible and it wouldn’t happen again. Some of them he threatened, others he scoffed at. When I told them there were others, they volunteered their personal log entries with all the pertinent date stamps and logged a formal complaint.”

Ren put aside the padd and folded his hands on the edge of the table. “So let me back up for a bit. You were telling me you knew that if you went to your captain, told him what happened, he would investigate and be angry on your behalf -- if there was no doubt in your mind of that, why didn’t you just do that?”

She struggled with it for a moment. A few tears escaped. When she raised her eyes again, she found Ren watching her sympathetically.

“I felt… ashamed. Because I’m like so many other officers, on the _Enterprise_ , I care more about Captain Picard’s opinion of me than anyone else’s, and I’ve had to discuss my mistakes with him before. I didn't want to tell him I made a mistake. I also didn’t want him to -- “

Ren had to prompt her. “To what?”

“I didn’t want him to feel the conflict. I knew how he felt about me. It isn’t easy to mix up personal and professional, in Starfleet, and come out of it with everything neatly lined up, all your motives cut and dried. And Will was a good friend, to him. I wasn't sure how -- I was afraid he wouldn't believe me.”

“All right,” Ren said, tapping on his padd -- turning off the recording, she realized. “I’m going to break my own rules here for a minute, and tell you something. I just heard you say you feel ashamed, as if anything that happened was your fault. And I just heard you say you were willing to let Will Riker get away with it because you were protecting your captain’s feelings?”

Deanna found herself smiling sheepishly. “Well, it’s not as though he’s ever been able to do it properly himself.”

A quiet huff, and Jean-Luc started to swear quietly behind her. She turned her chair slightly, to look over her shoulder at him, and he had his palm to his forehead.

“I suppose you’re going to be upset with me now?”

“Deanna, you can’t be serious -- you actually thought -- ”

“Do I need to give you a rundown of all the changes to brain chemistry that happen when there’s trauma? I was in a heightened state of anxiety, nothing I decided was going to be entirely rational. We’ve already established this at least twice in your own counseling.”

“Yes, Counselor,” he said in a faintly mocking tone.

“I’d like to speak to the captain now,” Ren said, back to matter of fact and clipped diction.

“You can stay,” Jean-Luc said, putting a hand on her shoulder to keep her from rising as she’d been about to do. “I was going to tell you -- the sickbay visit you mentioned, I had Beverly access the logs from that night when Will went in. She’s certain she can demonstrate there’s a clear difference between Will being punched by you and being punched by Worf -- the angle of attack is quite different, for example. And Worf would have done more damage.”

Ren leaned forward. “Captain, does your evidence give us the ability to identify her conclusively as the one who punched him?”

Deanna sighed. “I’m the shortest person aboard. I doubt you’ll find anyone else with a near-vertical angle of attack.”

“Captain, have you ever known Will Riker to behave in a way that compromised the generally accepted ethics of Starfleet officers?”

That was broad enough that Deanna thought she knew what he would say. The smile must have tipped off Ren.

“Something amusing, Commander?”

“I know what he’s going to say.”

Ren glanced at Jean-Luc, and she turned to him expectantly. “What am I going to say?”

“The _Pegasus_.”

“Nearly violating the Prime Directive when we were dealing with the J’naii came to mind as well. And neither of those incidents is directly related to the kind of ethics he violated with you.”

“Do you do this often?” Ren asked, flicking his finger between them.

“Yes,” they chorused, and looked at each other in a double-take.

Ren nodded slowly. “All right. Here is my plan. I am going to take these documents you forwarded, and your statement. I would like a report regarding the incident you mentioned, when Riker came here today. I would like access to Commander Riker’s personal logs, and yours, Commander. I will get back to you within a few days, after completing a preliminary review of it all -- we'll talk again, and then we'll set the court-martial in motion.”

“I don’t keep personal logs.”

That gave him pause -- he sat back and looked askance at her. “You don’t keep personal logs -- why?”

“I have to document everything I do in counseling. I have to make official reports after missions. By the time I’m done with appointments, briefings, and everything else, I really get tired of talking. So if there’s anything left to say, I use a paper journal and a pen.”

“All right, may I have those?”

Deanna turned to Jean-Luc. “I don’t suppose you remember where those are?”

Ren waited while she searched for them, in the bookcases, in the drawers, in the cabinet in the base of the coffee table, and then in the spaces in the bedroom -- another bookcase, in drawers and in the closet. She found them, three small books with black covers, in the box of sex toys on the top shelf in the closet. She put the box on the end of the bed and took out three toys to get to them, glanced at Jean-Luc standing there, watching her with raised eyebrows and his hands on his hips, and handed him a slender black vibrator with soft fingers on the end.

“My favorite, for future reference,” she whispered, and took the diaries out to give to Ren.

After the JAG officer was gone, she returned to the bedroom. He had just figured out how to turn the vibrator on, and was watching the fingers writhing around as if they were alive.

“Are we having lunch, or am I lunch?”

He glared at her, turned off the vibrator, and put everything back in the box, which he returned to the closet. “It’s nearly thirteen hundred -- we should be getting ready to go.”

“I know. I was mostly kidding.”

“I think we have a solid case,” he said, walking with her back to the living room.

“It didn’t seem that he had any doubt -- Ren is confident and interested, and he seems rational enough. I’ll check his background when we’re done eating.”

“I like the way you think,” he said with a grin.

“I’ve been learning from the best.” Deanna giggled. “Although I’m sure I’m no Dickman Hill.”

“I’m just going to have to stop reacting to it, I suppose, so you’ll quit teasing me.” He gave a quiet ‘humph’ and stopped walking.

“Jean-Luc?”

He gave her a wicked, wily smile, such as she had not seen before. “I could be Dickman Hill. Just a few edits to the program. You can wear the dress….”

She started to giggle, then laugh. “I love you, Jean-Luc.”

His expression changed yet again, and he pulled her close and held her, while he loved her back. After a few minutes, he pulled away and ran a thumb along her cheek. "Sandwich?"

"I'd like a bowl of soup. Not sure anything really substantial would settle on my stomach -- it was harder than I thought, telling him everything."

He fiddled with the menu on the replicator. "Make it pho?" he asked casually.

Deanna glared at him, until he noticed. "I believe we'll need to have Data give you joke-telling lessons."

"Ow," he complained, starting to grin along with her.

"Try tomato bisque, don't forget the croutons."

"And Tarkalian tea."

"You see," she said with a smile, leaning in to squeeze his ribs, "you know better."

"I'll get the chocolate cake later, when you decide your stomach will settle enough for that."

"Much, much better."


	29. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

The annunciator interrupted them. Deanna closed the album, and Jean-Luc took it out of her lap. “It’s Ro,” she said.

“What’s she doing here? Come in,” he called out.

Ro came several steps in before she recognized where she really was -- she halted, her eyes darted around the room, and she started to back out again.

“Something wrong, Lieutenant?” Jean-Luc asked.

“I was -- “

“Come in, Ro,” Deanna said. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“No,” the Bajoran said warily. “Thanks. I know I’m really late -- I -- “

“You asked the computer where my quarters were and didn’t look at the placard outside. It’s all right, come have a seat.”

Ro swung her arms, took a step, glanced around again -- the usual way she was when feeling awkward and out of place. “I should make another appointment,” she said.

“Or you could have a seat,” Jean-Luc said. He gave her a warm smile and gestured at the couch. “I’m going to the bridge, to see if there’s any word on that transport.” The ship carrying Robert and his family had been delayed. Looking through the photo album had been her suggestion, to distract him from worry.

After the captain was gone, Ro calmed down somewhat. “I guess I might have expected you might be actually living with him.”

“I just moved in.” She folded her hands in her lap, and tried not to be too eager for her to sit.

Ro approached and settled on the end of the couch. It was like having a wild animal in the room. She smiled, but it was a tenuous one.

“I didn’t ask -- did you send the admiral your report?”

“Yes -- it took a while to finish but I sent it this morning.” Ro’s smile collapsed. “I debated not putting everything in it. But I did.”

“I have to admit that I was a little surprised, that you believed me,” Deanna said.

“The captain trusts you,” she said at once. “And I trust him. In the end… I think that’s all I have left. If the Maquis are as you say, I really have nowhere else to be.”

Deanna nodded and worked hard to keep her anxiety out of her demeanor. “You were very uncomfortable when we were talking about Will. I had hoped you would tell me why.”

Ro shook her head, a wry smile blossoming. “You know why.”

“I don’t. I know how you feel -- interpreting that is not always possible. You have extremely conflicted feelings about him. I understand that well enough. You want the friendly Will everyone knew -- so do I. I would love to have him back.” She couldn’t keep the wobble out of her voice. It was difficult to think about that side of Will without tears. Actually, she would love to have had that Will Riker be as she had thought he was, before she started to recognize what was really going on.

“I don’t know what to think,” Ro said. “He told me so much about his life, and how he regretted some of the things that happened. I thought at one point that we….”

“I’m sure that there are many who can say the same,” Deanna murmured with a sad smile. “Some of us were engaged to him.”

“He told me about his mother dying, when he was younger. How his father had to raise him by himself.”

Deanna sighed, pulled her feet up, and settled with her elbow on the back of the couch, resting her head on her fist. “Computer, access records on Elizabeth Riker, wife of Kyle Riker, mother of William T. Riker. What is the current location of Elizabeth Riker?”

The computer’s pleasant voice said, “Elizabeth Riker currently resides in Boston, on the continent of North America on Earth.”

Ro stared open-mouthed at her. And within seconds, the anger lit fires in her eyes. “How much did he make up?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been digging into records only the past few days, here and there between everything else, into all the things in his supposed history. Elizabeth left Kyle. She saw her son every so often but Will stayed in Alaska with his father most of the time. I also found out he had a fiance, before me, even though he swore he’d never asked anyone to marry him before. He likes to make you feel unique.”

Ro’s hand went to her stomach.

“Yes, I’ve been doing that a lot, too. Jean-Luc banned him from the ship after he tried to get in here, despite being told to leave. I’m not leaving the ship alone, while he’s still here at the starbase.”

“Why won’t he leave you alone? That doesn’t make any sense -- he knows you’re with Captain Picard.”

Deanna shook her head, rubbing her eyes. “I don’t know why -- he’s fixated on me, for some reason. I just want to move on with my life -- but I can’t, until I’ve done what I can to keep him from hurting other women.”

“What?”

“If the charges stick, he could be in prison for a while and be forced into some sort of rehabilitation. I have to try.”

“Or, you could just go on with your life and forget about him.”

“I have a growing list of women who were violated by him, most while on duty. He touched their breasts, their thigh, ran a hand down the back of their uniform. He said things that made them uncomfortable. Women who are still aboard the _Enterprise_ who we work with are on that list. He should have been respectful to us, we’re fellow officers. There’s no way I can let him continue to do what he’s done!”

Ro’s mouth developed a funny quirk on one end. “That’s sort of the same thing I was thinking, when I thought I would just join the Maquis. There’s no way I can let this happen, to people who can’t protect themselves and don’t deserve to lose their homes.”

“I haven’t forgotten that battle, either,” Deanna exclaimed. “I can only fight one enemy at a time -- this enemy is about to take a ship full of officers into another quadrant on a ten year mission!”

Ro continued to sit stiffly upright on the edge of the couch, and crossed her arms while she thought silently, her anger waning. She winced and gazed down at the floor.

“Ro?”

“I’m sorry,” she responded, looking Deanna in the eye. It was such an unusual thing for her to do -- she was usually uncomfortable, looking off to one side or the other instead of directly at her. “I let him influence my opinion of you. He told me you were always spying on people’s thoughts.”

Deanna almost jumped off the couch -- her first impulse was to shriek and curse. Instead, she found herself making fists and grimacing furiously. “Fucking liar,” she spat.

Ro stared as if she’d turned into a Klingon.

Deanna shook it off. “I can’t do that, Ro -- I never have and even if I could, I wouldn’t! What a ridiculous thing for him to say. It obviously did the job he expected it to, though, it kept you from talking to me at all. Just think how threatened he was by the thought of the two of us actually being friends, for him to do that.”

Ro’s eyebrows jumped and her smirk was vaguely irritating. But it went away slowly, and her emotions changed again as she considered all of this. “So what now, we’re going to be friends?”

Deanna gave her a tired look. “I’ve never thought of you as an enemy. I’ve known you haven’t trusted me -- that happens more often than you think, because some are uncomfortable with Betazoids, for the reason you stated -- they think I’m a telepath. I also know you don’t want to talk about the past. I have a good idea of why. Anyone who spent time in internment camps will want to avoid those memories. But I assure you, the offers to help you have all been sincere…. I know you don’t have to live with pain of wounds you suffered years ago. I’ve helped the captain through his own trauma, I’ve helped others as well, and I can help you. Or -- we can be friends, instead of client and counselor. And Sarah can help you with the trauma. In fact… you have no history with her. She would be better able to help.”

“I’ll think about it.” Ro seemed a little less stiff. “Well, I’ll think about the counseling. I guess, since you’re not what I thought, I’ll give friendship a chance. But only because I know I’ll see you around a lot. Geordi likes you, and the captain might be dragging you around with him more often, I guess.”

“Glad to hear it. We’ll get along better than you think.”

Ro gave her a dubious look. Deanna went sly, and Ro leaned back a little. “I’m not my counselor persona all the time. I can tell you haven’t really seen much of the captain when he’s not being entirely the captain, as well.”

“And how can you tell that?”

“Walking in here put you in a state of confusion -- you don’t know how to approach him when he’s off duty.”

Ro spread her hands. “Does he ever go off duty?”

“Oh, yes. He’s been changing over the course of this tour of duty. I’ve seen it. You’re much more likely to see him relax now than you were just three years ago.”

The door opened and Jean-Luc returned, making what she was saying come true. He was excited as he had been at some of his archaeological endeavors and since he was out of uniform, wearing a green cowl-necked shirt and brown slacks, he was even further removed than usual from his typical shipboard formality.

“They’re here?” Deanna exclaimed, rising from the couch. She too was out of uniform in a dress a shade darker than his shirt.

“Yes.” He caught himself and looked at Ro -- the excitement was being reined in as he did so.

“We should have lunch tomorrow,” Deanna said, smiling down at the Bajoran, whose body language was shouting her shock and discomfort.

“Okay, see you tomorrow.” Ro came to attention, nodded to the captain. “Sir.” And then she stiffly strode from the room as if escaping a prison sentence.

“Are we ready to go?” Deanna asked, coming around the coffee table to take his hands.

“Of course.” But he was having some minor meltdown, inside, anxiety rising, and she thought she understood why. This was the first time his two worlds would collide -- it was one thing to go home, and then come back to the ship. It was another to bring family aboard. Particularly family who had not approved of his Starfleet career. From what he’d told her about Robert, his brother had staunchly walked in their father’s shoes in so many ways -- he had been initially harsh and rejecting to Jean-Luc when he visited LaBarre, after he’d recovered from assimilation. She didn’t think Jean-Luc had really thought about the visit, for very long, given all the other things going on in their lives. But now they were on the starbase and this was real.

“If you’re struggling, let me do the talking,” she said, running her fingers across his cheek. “Just look at me -- or let me sense it, what you want me to do. Let me help you.”

He nodded, then pulled her into a hug -- it was an odd moment, as she realized that the resonance between them had risen to a detectable level as they stood there, and she put her arms around him and let him draw on her stability.

When they parted, he had a fond expression and cupped his hand along the contour of her neck and head, holding her there. “Deanna.”

“I think we should use a shuttle,” she said.

It shook him out of the reverie. “Shuttle?”

“We should give them a complete tour -- they’ve been on a public transport, probably not a lot of opportunities to look out a window. We can offer them a look at your ship from the inside and out. It’s the family of the captain -- their first time in space. Make it memorable, especially for Rene.”

It gave him an anchor -- a mission, so to speak. “Yes. Perhaps -- we could ask Data to pilot it, so we don’t have to pay so much attention to piloting.”

“Yes, exactly,” she exclaimed. “Troi to Data -- I have a favor to ask. Are you busy?”

“I am currently supervising the bridge and all is quiet. I can leave the conn to Mr. Natchez.”

“Then meet us in the main shuttle bay in a few minutes. Thank you, Data.”

“I am on my way.”

Jean-Luc was starting to feel more grounded, less anxious. He turned for the door, his arm going around her -- it was starting to be a more automatic gesture, for him, which made her smile. His hand stayed against her back, on the walk to the lift, riding to deck four and walking to the door of the shuttle bay. Data was approaching from the other direction with his usual pleasant expression, and did not react to seeing them out of uniform or walking so casually through the ship with that minimal affectionate contact.

“I suggest that we use the _Galileo_ , as it has recently been serviced.” Data turned to walk inside with them, without hesitation.

“That would be fine, Mr. Data.”

“Will we be traveling beyond the starbase, sir?”

Jean-Luc slowed, gave Deanna a sheepish glance, and sighed. “I’m sorry -- we’re going to the starbase, to pick up my brother and his family, Data. We thought they might appreciate a tour -- we’ll take them for a look outside, before bringing them back here.”

“I see. I am looking forward to meeting your family. Have they come to visit you before?”

Jean-Luc said nothing. Data, likely accustomed to the captain’s ways by now, didn't comment and headed for the front of the shuttle to begin the preflight process and contact the bridge. He sat at the second chair in front, and Deanna took a seat behind him. He was starting to drift again.

“I believe the commercial docks are directly below the shuttle bay?” Deanna asked Data casually.

“You are correct, Deanna. If it would help, I will wait aboard the _Galileo_ while you and the captain retrieve our guests,” he said while the shuttle glided through the force field and left the ship, the starboard nacelle briefly in view as the shuttle rose and angled starboard, then re-oriented on the starbase.

It woke Jean-Luc from his musings. “No, Data, come with us.”

Surprised, Deanna looked at the back of his head, and in response to her surge of affection for the captain, Jean-Luc leaned left slightly and looked at her out of the tail of his eye, and said quietly, “How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world that has such people in't!”

“The Tempest, act five, scene one,” Data commented. “I do not see the relevance.”

Deanna smiled at him shyly, fully aware that he meant her. “Perhaps a comment on having family aboard for the first time?” she asked calmly. “Something new -- the world is changing, now that the old world is meeting the new.”

Jean-Luc faced forward and said nothing, and she was surprised again when Data did not comment again.

Once the shuttle was within the dome of the force field over the starbase’s shuttle pad, Jean-Luc moved back to open the hatch and disembark, and she followed. Data rose from his chair, but Deanna hesitated and gave him a look and a quick head shake.

“I will remain with the shuttle, Captain,” he said, giving her an exaggerated wink to let her know he understood completely. He followed it with a rather unsettling smile. She made a mental note to help him with that, later.

She mouthed the words ‘thank you’ and followed her captain out of the shuttle; he was waiting just outside, and giving her a suspicious look. As he turned to stride off rapidly toward the exit into the starbase proper, she matched his pace with a little effort.

“You’re handling me, aren’t you?” he said quietly, as they went through the door into an empty corridor.

She touched his arm, and they came to a halt. “I think you’re not quite making your usual clear-headed decisions. They’re new to this environment, and I know how overwhelming it can be for people who haven’t been in space before. Data would be -- alarming to them, at first. This is difficult enough, and you’re nervous as well. I want to help, but if you don’t want me to, I’ll follow your lead.”

He gripped her forearm in reciprocation, and nodded. “You’re right, as usual. I didn’t anticipate having this much difficulty with this.”

She smiled again, thinking about how the captain she’d met when she’d first come aboard the _Enterprise_ would never have admitted that. Let alone have his brother coming to see him. She moved closer, tucking her arm through his, and they continued to walk.

“I appreciate your help. Please -- “ Something happened in his thoughts that led to him hitting a wall of his own emotion.

“Jean-Luc?”

They were at the end of the corridor. Beyond the closed door, she sensed the crowds -- it was about eighteen hundred hours and the airlocks and shuttle bays were busy areas. He hesitated and all the shifting emotions came to a head. She tightened her fingers on his arm while she waited for him to find the words.

“Later. We need to go.” He took a step, though she could tell he still struggled.

They weren’t interrupted in their journey to the public terminals, riding a half-full lift down a level and another quick walk to a wall-sized monitor to look for the location of the platform at which the family must be waiting. They were hurrying for platform 3C when she sensed him recognizing someone, and then he was moving across the flow of scattered foot traffic and calling out Robert’s name. Deanna followed him slowly, giving him time to greet them, watching him lean in with Robert in the half-hug and lean -- he repeated the embrace with the woman who must be Marie, kissing her cheek instead of brushing cheeks as he had with Robert. And then he beamed at the boy, whose face was openly joyful as he threw out his arms to hug his uncle.

And then Deanna had reached them, as they were standing to the side in a doorway out of the flow of traffic, ignored by the rest of the travelers. Rene’s eyes landed on her and she could see the resemblance -- he looked remarkably like the captain, as he had been after the transporter accident. She smiled with amusement at the boy.

“Is that your wife?” Rene exclaimed, pointing. It disrupted Jean-Luc’s response to Marie’s question about the luggage. Jean-Luc turned, and Robert stared, and Marie’s face shone with joy.

Deanna was distracted from responding by another wave of emotion from Jean-Luc, that reminded her of occasions when he had solved a particularly troublesome problem. A grin turned into a laugh. “Yes,” he exclaimed. “This is Deanna.”

And Robert’s grin lit up his careworn face, and he stepped around his brother with his arms extended. “Well, then,” he exclaimed, “come let us welcome you to the family.”

Deanna didn’t mind a bit being buffeted around from one Picard to the other, even if Robert made a production of kissing her cheeks. She appreciated Marie, who was calmer than her husband and son, and was neither smothering nor stiff -- Rene was about the same height as Alexander, and hugged her around the midriff tightly in almost the same manner.

“We have a shuttle waiting, if you would rather have a ride than go through the transporters,” she said.

“Anywhere you want to take us, my dear,” Robert exclaimed.

“I didn’t like the transporter we had to use back on Earth, to get to the space station,” Marie confessed.

“It’s quite common for people to find transporters unsettling,” Deanna said, with the comforting warmth she typically used for anxious clients. “And we thought you might not have had the chance to experience space travel, really, and Jean-Luc told me you have a little interest in starships?” She smiled again at Rene.

“I want to be in Starfleet,” Rene exclaimed happily.

“We’ll show you what that’s like, then,” she said. “Let’s get your bags.”

It took a while to maneuver everyone and the baggage through to the shuttle bay, but once past the ‘Starfleet personnel only’ door they were once more in the quiet corridor. A lieutenant going out gave them an odd look, but didn’t challenge them. Jean-Luc led the way at a business-like march, carrying several of the bags, with Marie and Rene in tow. Deanna had two of Marie’s bags and walked behind Robert.

“Where are we -- ooooooh,” Rene sighed, as the last door opened and they walked out into space, seemingly, the acres of decking apparently wall-less. Robert followed his brother at a slow amble, looking up and out into the blackness peppered by faintly-glowing stars.

“How do you get used to this?” He waved his hand at the view, looking to Deanna.

“There are some parts of it that we don’t get used to. This is one of them.” She took his arm and led him toward the shuttle. “Don’t worry, there’s a force field holding in the air.”

“What if it stopped working?”

“There are doors that would swing out to protect the station from atmosphere loss. The force field takes less energy than it would to continually open the doors for every shuttle.” As she spoke, a shuttle approached and passed through the force field with a shimmer as it breached it. The shuttle settled on a pad near the _Galileo_.

Robert felt more awe than she might have expected a technophobe to have, for this. Deanna let him go into the shuttle first, and stepped up and in -- she glanced back as movement caught her eye and noticed people emerging from the other shuttle. She tapped the panel and the door closed firmly. Dropping the bags at the rear with the others, she moved forward, to catch the end of Jean-Luc introducing Data to his family.

She suggested that Robert and Marie ride in the front with Data, so ended up in the passenger seating against the back wall with Jean-Luc. He watched Rene excitedly standing front and center, almost leaning so far his head impacted the viewport. Data kept up a commentary on what he was doing, and what they were seeing as he turned the shuttle in a wide sweep around the station. He was, Deanna thought, orienting them so the shuttle would pass over the _Enterprise_ from front to back.

“So you didn’t need my help, after all,” she murmured.

Jean-Luc glanced at her, and pressed his lips together pensively. “I hope… I didn’t intend to assume so much,” he whispered, leaning toward her.

“I would say that at this point, it’s not an assumption. You can figure out the rest after everything is calmer.”

His eyebrows drew in and rose slightly. “What is this calm, of which you speak? I thought you were in Starfleet?”

She giggled softly and watched Robert lean to peer out the side viewport. “Point taken. I suppose I should be grateful you didn’t try anything romantic, I’d probably trip and break my arm.”

“Is there a story behind that assumption?”

“Several. But let’s get them through the tour before I start telling them, so they don’t assume any of it will happen to them.”

"The shuttle that came in, did you see it?"

"Oh, yes. I think the fleet admiral is early. The shuttle belongs to the _Bellerophon_."

Jean-Luc's eyes went to the front of the shuttle, where Rene was watching as they flew past the aft nacelle, angling up and rolling slightly to provide a view of the pylon and star drive section. "It stands to reason -- one of her captains is accused of some serious crimes. That means your debriefing will likely be first thing tomorrow."

Data brought the shuttle around for another pass. Robert blurted, "The damned thing is bigger than I expected! How many people have you put on it?"

"We have a current complement of one thousand twenty-two," Jean-Luc said. "Some of those are civilian staff. There are amenities -- a lounge, a salon, the school."

"A school!" Rene exclaimed. "You have a school?"

"Of course. You can visit if you like," Jean-Luc said amiably. He glanced at Deanna, and half-smiled. "My stepson attends."

Marie tore herself away from the view to stared at him open-mouthed. "Jean-Luc! You said _nothing_ about a stepson!"

"I have a foster son, Alexander," Deanna explained. "Our security chief asked me to be his guardian, if anything happened to him. You'll meet him later today, when school is out."

"I am supposed to be his babysitter after school. Since Lieutenant-Commander McCormick is... I am not certain what he is doing. His colloquial language is not clear at times." Data was making a course correction as he spoke.

"He's probably cleaning house, since Leila is arriving tomorrow," Deanna said with a smile. She took stock, and listened while Data pointed out the captain's yacht, in its housing on the underside of the saucer section. When he started another course correction, she said, "Data, I think that will be sufficient -- we should dock, and show them to their quarters so they can rest."

Robert shot a look of relief her way. "Thank you, my dear."

"I imagine it was difficult to sleep -- space travel on the passenger liners isn't always so comfortable as it should be. My mother complains about it all the time. She usually charters her own small vessel, when she is traveling as an ambassador. She claims the public vessels have inadequate inertial dampeners and uneven gravity, and it makes her space sick to be on them for very long."

"Oh, yes," Marie said, as if relieved she was not unique. "I was ill for three days. I thought it was just my overactive imagination, that it didn't feel right walking from the dining hall to the cabin."

"I can talk to Mother and see if she has recommendations for which passenger line might have better ships," Deanna said. She noticed Robert's glare at his brother. "You know, when one has one's own vessel, one doesn't have a clue about public transportation. It's hardly his fault."

Robert's mercenary grin surprised her. "I can see why this old asshole likes you -- his own private apologist."

"Oh, not at all," she chided. "You're worse than my brother. Why are you so mean to him?"

That shocked Jean-Luc. She ignored him, and grinned as Robert scowled. "Mean? If I told you half of what he's done -- "

"What he's done when you were children? How fascinating that you want to stay stuck there. I don't know if he mentioned that I'm a psychologist? I think I would like to talk to you more -- shall we make an appointment?"

Robert stared at her as if she'd forgotten to have her fangs removed. Marie started to giggle lightly.

Meanwhile, Data had guided the shuttle into the main shuttle bay, and turned his chair to look back at them. Deanna was closest to the door so touched the controls and stepped out, turning to receive a share of the baggage and waiting for everyone else to come out.

"I could show them to their quarters, if you need to be on the bridge, Captain," Deanna said. It was another shock for Robert to hear her change of tone. 

"Can I see the bridge?" Rene exclaimed, oblivious in his excitement.

"You're very tired, Rene," Deanna said, her hand automatically going to his head to smooth his hair, exactly the way she always did Alexander's. "We'll do the rest of our tour in the morning. You should rest, and we'll eat dinner in a few hours, and then you'll probably love to meet Alexander -- I bet you've never seen a Klingon before."

"She's right, Rene," Marie said gently. She eyed Deanna with a little suspicion. "You're Betazoid, aren't you? I don't believe I've met one since I was at university in London."

"My father's family were from Northumberland, but I grew up on Betazed. So, both yes and no."

Jean-Luc gave her such a look that she wondered that his family didn't notice it. She thanked Data, and turned to lead the way from the shuttle bay.

It took an hour to settle them into a diplomatic suite on deck nine, including an orientation to the replicator. Jean-Luc showed Robert how to get the computer to tell them the way to their quarters, and left them to their own devices with Deanna in tow. He had expended so much nervous energy that by the time they walked into the living room he sighed heavily and almost fell down on the couch.

Deanna asked for tea, and brought it to him. "That went quite well, I think."

"I'm beginning to feel like I've got the cart before the horse. How the hell do I not know you have a brother?"

"You don't realize that my mother is twice your age, and my father was her third husband. My brother was graduating from college when I was born. Betazoids age differently, you knew that. And Tiklun is quite a bit more arrogant than any Picard, especially to his little half-blood sister." She shrugged. "I haven't seen him since I was twenty. Mother doesn't try to pretend we belong in the same room together."

"One of her saner choices, it sounds like," he said with a sigh. "And you've never spoken of your father's side of the family either."

"There aren't many of them left. He was considered a bit of a black sheep. The only ones I know well are my uncle and his -- well, his unwife, I suppose. They live on Betazed. He's the one who taught me skydiving."

"It says something about us, doesn't it? That we've gotten this far, and not understood some of this?"

Deanna handed him a cup of hot tea. "Perhaps it says that we have better things to talk about."

He smirked and raised his cup to her. "I shall accept your truth as my own."

"I will expect my ring to arrive about the same time as our first child, right on schedule."

He eyed her suspiciously. "Deanna..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never been fond of Deanna's backstory, and since everything else in the story is upside down - why not hack it up too?


	30. Enter the Water Buffalo

Deanna knew they were in the corridor, so when the annunciator didn’t sound, she went to the door. Marie turned in surprise as the panels hissed open. They were early for dinner.

“This panel is the doorbell,” Deanna said, pointing to the panel beneath the name placard. “Come in, please.”

Robert’s eyes swept around his brother’s quarters as he entered, taking everything in. He came to a halt in the middle of the room and surveyed the collection of Worf’s weapons, mounted on the wall. “What a collection,” he remarked, turning to Deanna.

“Those belonged to Alexander’s father. I plan to give them to him, when he finally goes on to Qo’nos, to be with his family there,” Deanna said. “The largest is a bat’leth. Would you like me to show you how it’s used?”

Robert did a double take, and gestured at the weapon. “You use this?” he exclaimed in disbelief.

“I want to see,” Rene exclaimed, jumping a little.

Deanna went to the wall and carefully lifted the bat’leth out of the mounts. She held it up in front of her, turning to Rene, who had followed her over; he backed a step and stared at the long curved blade. “This is the weapon of a Klingon warrior. Tip to tip, one hundred and sixteen centimetres. It weighs five point three kilos. The exterior handgripping has a diameter of five centimetres. The blade is made of composite baakonite. You can imagine Klingons fighting with these.”

“Show me? Does my uncle use these?”

“No, he’s a little more comfortable with a phaser, or his fists. But I’ve used this in practice battles on the holodeck. Perhaps I can show you later. Would you like to hold it?”

Deanna saw Marie lean in instinctively, but stop short of actually saying anything. Robert crossed his arms and watched Rene wrap his fingers around the grips, just next to Deanna’s hands.

“Be careful, it’s heavy.” She let the weapon rest in his palms. As she predicted he wasn’t able to hold it long -- it tipped, being heavier along the blade than the grip, and she brought her hands up to scoop the weapon back out of his hands.

The door opened, and Alexander loped in. “Mom! Are we practicing now?” he exclaimed with his usual enthusiasm.

“Why don’t you go hang this in your room for now, we’ll go to the holodeck later, perhaps,” she said. “The captain’s family are here -- this is his nephew, Rene. And Mr. and Mrs. Picard, Rene’s parents. I was showing them your father’s weapons.”

“Hi! WOW, HI!” He bounced and grinned at each of them.

Deanna smiled and shook her head, and stepped back, then raised the bat’leth and twirled it about, gave it a swing to and fro, caught an imaginary blade on the tip, swung it round and parried, then let the blade swing down and held it out. It got Alexander’s attention, as planned.

“Put it away. Don’t damage anything -- careful carry.”

Alexander leaped, reached up to take the weapon from her easily, and carefully carried it off to his room. Rene watched him go open-mouthed.

“Klingons are very strong, Rene, so if you’re playing with him and he challenges you to wrestle or fight, the response should be no,” Deanna said. “I know he’s not ever going to hurt you on purpose, but he’s much younger than he looks. He doesn’t know his own strength yet. So you can be the older cousin, and just pick a nice calm game instead of arm-wrestling.”

Alexander returned at a run, his volume stuck on high-pitched and loud. “Mom! Can Bo come over? To meet Rene? Can we play -- “

Deanna crossed her arms and leaned a little to the left, waiting patiently, and he caught the hint within three questions and stopped. “Why don’t you show Rene your room and you can both wash your hands for dinner?”

“OKAY! COME ON!” Alexander ran, and Rene caught his enthusiasm and ran after him.

Robert was calming down, a little. He closed his mouth and studied Deanna anew. “This is your foster son?”

“Yes, for nearly five months. He’s been much calmer, lately.”

Marie had her hands over her mouth; she dropped them, her fingers gripping folds of her skirt, and smiled at her. “I’m beginning to see why Jean-Luc chose you.”

“At least someone’s figured it out,” Deanna said benignly, gesturing at the couch. “Please sit down. Let me get you something to drink.”

“I don’t suppose you have any wine -- not that replicated stuff, either. I may have to reconcile myself to replicated food, but I don’t intend to compromise when it comes to wine.” Robert settled on the couch, crossing his legs and spreading his arms out along the back.

Deanna crossed to the desk in the corner and plucked up one of the bottles from the floor behind the chair. She brought it to him. “Would this be adequate?”

“He still has some of the wine I gave him,” Robert said wonderingly, dusting off the bottle. “I thought he would have drunk it all by now.”

“He saves it for special occasions. It’s very good wine, after all. Computer, four wine glasses,” she said, crossing to the replicator to pick them off the tray after they materialized.

Robert wielded a corkscrew as ably as Jean-Luc, so she was able to hand Jean-Luc a glass as he entered the room, once again in uniform -- he’d had a meeting with Nechayev, of course, because the fleet admiral was no respecter of people’s time off, when she had something to obsess about.

“Well, thank you,” he exclaimed. “Just what I needed.”

“She wanted the impossible?”

“She wants you in one of the briefing rooms, on deck two, in the morning at the start of the shift. And the impossible. Where is Rene?”

Deanna put down her glass on the table, and headed into Alexander’s room. The boys were in the bathroom -- Rene was asking about the sonic shower. “Enough, come on,” she called.

Alexander was winding himself up too high, she noted, as she came out and the little Klingon burst into the room on her heels. “HI, CAPTAIN!” Rene came out as well and went around all of them, feeling uncertain in the new environment and probably not accustomed to Alexander’s high energy. He sat and leaned on his father.

Instinctively, Jean-Luc raised the glass higher, and stepped away. “Alexander, did you exercise enough today?”

“We didn’t have PE,” he said in a quieter yell.

“Run it off -- go on,” he exclaimed, pointing at the door. Alexander dashed out and was gone.

“What is he doing?” Marie exclaimed.

Jean-Luc glanced at Deanna with a little embarrassment. “If he doesn’t get enough exercise he’s completely unmanageable. He’ll be back after ten turns around the deck.”

“So what is it you do all day, Jean-Luc? Meetings?” Robert asked. It was only somewhat critical. An improvement, Deanna supposed. She glanced at Marie, and they exchanged a smile.

“That’s Deanna’s job, actually. If I had to talk to people as much as she does, I’d have to go be an archaeologist instead.”

“You are the ship’s counselor -- I would suppose that is a demanding job,” Marie said.

“You could say that,” Deanna said, settling next to Jean-Luc and crossing her legs.

“But it would be an understatement,” Jean-Luc added. He sipped wine and smiled at her, his subdued look of satisfaction.

Alexander returned at a walk, and went to Deanna to sit and lean in for a hug, which she happily gave, careful to hold her wine away to not spill it on him. “How was school, little tiger?”

“We’re learning about North American tribes -- my spirit animal is a tiger,” he said with a grin.

“I’m not surprised. Your teacher seems to be looking at a different culture every week -- you should talk to Mr. Picard about France,” she said.

“Surely Jean-Luc has told him all about France,” Robert exclaimed.

Deanna smiled at him. “Not really -- they’ve been doing other things. You should show them your boats, Alexander.”

It launched a show-and-tell, with the boats and the Klingon warbird in progress brought out and arranged on the coffee table, and Deanna let that go on while she went to the replicator. Marie joined her in collecting silverware, napkins, and food from the slot in stages, and caught her sleeve on the second return trip to setting the table.

“What’s wrong, Marie?” she murmured, putting a hand on Marie’s shoulder and slowly walking with her back to the replicator.

Marie’s tentative smile mirrored her feelings of uncertainty. “It’s only that you seem to have this odd ability to predict things.”

“I’m an empath -- I sense feelings,” she said with a rueful smile. “I’m sorry if it’s causing you anxiety.”

“Not knowing caused the anxiety. I’m wondering why you aren’t wearing a ring, as well. Jean-Luc certainly has his mother’s -- it was one of many points of contention with Robert, that he wasn’t able to give it to me, but Yvette’s will was specific.”

Deanna sighed and picked up a plate with a lamb dish on it. “I’m sorry, but -- he was being… impulsive, in saying that. I’m probably safe in saying that will happen eventually but it’s not something we’ve discussed at length. He’s in an odd place, right now, emotionally. This is a very difficult period for us, I was on a dangerous six week mission that ended just a few days ago. I’m also involved in a legal proceeding related to inappropriate behavior of another officer. And he’s been anxious about your visit, I think for reasons you know well.”

Marie nodded, and obviously understood. “They do emotional things, these Picard boys. Very impulsive if they feel intensely about something. Robert says things at times that he later has to apologize for. Jean-Luc must work very hard not to let his feelings interfere in his job, I suppose, but it’s obvious he feels more than he thinks about you.”

“It is?”

They carried a few things to the table. Deanna glanced over -- Alexander was opening a kit that Mike had gotten for him. Marie took her arm on the next trip to the replicator. “I don’t know him so well, other than from his letters. But I have asked him before, if he has anyone -- he gave me the look, you probably know it well.”

“The same one he gives people who ask him for advice.” Deanna sniffed, picked up her wine glass for a sip, and gave a one-shouldered shrug. “He’s focused. You stray into the trivial at your own risk, and for a long time, relationships were not his focus.”

“You understand him very well, I think, because that’s my impression as well. So he’s focused, now, on you, and it’s been difficult.” Marie surveyed the table. “We need flowers, don’t you think?”

“Those can be replicated as well.”

Deanna did so, and as she placed the bowl of varicolored roses in the center of the table, she heard the chirp of a communicator. She turned to look at Jean-Luc -- he sat up from watching Alexander and Rene putting together pieces of a Galaxy-class starship model.

“Bridge to Picard.”

“Yes,” Jean-Luc exclaimed, standing to be ready to go.

“We’ve received a message from the _Havana_. They report being delayed -- their new arrival time will be in four days.”

“Acknowledged.” Jean-Luc brought over his wine glass and the nearly-empty bottle to the table. The news was reassuring -- Jason Vigo wouldn't be there just yet, so there was time to be settled before his arrival. He smiled at Marie, and turned to Deanna. “It looks like we’re ready for dinner.”

“Yes, have a seat. I’ll get another bottle of wine.”

Dinner went without a hitch, and Deanna wondered if the wine had something to do with Robert’s good mood -- he seemed to be drinking more than anyone else. Alexander was in good spirits and smiling nonstop. Conversation was sporadic and usually about the boys -- Rene was active in sports. Marie was the one who, as they lingered over the remains of the meal, finally asked for mercy and their guests went off to their quarters for the night.

Alexander frowned at being set to cleaning the table, but did it and went off to his room without being asked, telling them goodnight as he went. Deanna watched him go with a smile and turned to head for the bedroom, shooting a look at Jean-Luc.

“He’s being too well behaved,” Jean-Luc said as he came in a few paces behind her.

“Alexander is fine.” Deanna unbuttoned her dress, let it fall to the floor, and stepped out of it.

“No, I meant Robert. I think it’s because of you. Which is fine, really.”

“Maybe he’s decided to stop treating you as if you’re both fifteen. You also confused them by calling me a wife and not giving me a ring.”

“I know. I actually regret that, in retrospect.” He watched her approach slowly.

“Now that you’ve had time to think about it?”

He raised his eyes from her chest, and sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean -- ”

“I can see why you wanted to be so slow and deliberate about this relationship. I should apologize for not being more supportive of that.”

He put his hands on her bare shoulders, rubbing his thumb along her left collarbone lightly. “There’s no need for such regrets. I’m not doubting anything about us, at this point. Just thinking that it wasn’t the right way to go about that.”

Deanna shook her head slowly. “I’m going to pretend it didn’t happen, then. You can get to that when you’re ready.”

“I moved you in. I really don’t want you to leave. I introduced you to my family, which doesn’t happen -- I don’t introduce anyone to them, never have. I’m not sure how much more ready I could be.”

Patting his shoulder, Deanna turned, pulling clips out of her hair and shaking it out, and went to the bed. “You haven’t asked me if I wanted to be your wife.”

He was pulling off his uniform, sitting down on his side of the bed, and dropped pips on his night stand. “Do you?”

Deanna grinned at it. She’d had proposals twice before, and each time, the setting had been carefully orchestrated -- dinner, walk in the park, romantic setting, everything just so. Nothing like this. Of course, neither of them had taken up residence with her so casually, either. She sat cross-legged on the bed and started to brush her hair.

“Are you going to expect me to change my name?”

“It would make things confusing if you did. If we are continuing as officers -- unless you transferred, which is less appealing to me than quitting Starfleet.”

Deanna held her breath for a moment, waiting for the urge to cry to subside. She’d never heard him talk about quitting Starfleet before. She pulled her brush through her curls slowly, thinking about being somewhere other than the _Enterprise_ with him, trying to imagine what that would be like.

“Deanna?”

“I’m all right.”

“You’re trying not to cry.”

“It’s been a difficult day, with everything that’s going on -- I’m not feeling myself at the moment.”

“I can tell,” he said softly. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Are you really thinking of leaving Starfleet?”

It threw him into a pensive state. The bed moved, and his hand came down on her back, slid up her backbone, and came to a stop between her shoulder blades. “Not really. Eventually, perhaps, or if -- I could see the potential for it, if circumstances changed, but I don’t see a reason to worry just yet.”

“We should get some sleep.” She raised her head to smile at him. “It’s late.”

He wasn’t smiling in return, but looked at her with a concerned curiosity.

“I enjoy working with you, as we have been. I suppose hearing you say that struck me wrong. I think about the way things are and how much easier it would be for you, if… things were different.”

“You did warn me that your life could be complicated. Have I complained?”

“I made Marie uneasy, being relaxed and not making an effort to ignore what I sense. I have a crazy ex who assaults people. I haven’t broken any bones in a month but it’s only a matter of time.”

“You usually have a higher tolerance level than this. You’re exhausted -- you need sleep.”

She woke in the morning with vague memories of being held and falling asleep with him there. And he was of course already out of bed. But he came back from the bathroom, and she watched him with sleepy eyes as he slipped back under the covers, and settled on his side. His eyes closed -- she could just barely make out his features in the starlight.

“I want to be your wife.”

The whisper must have been just audible enough. He opened his eyes again, and pushed himself into a sitting position. “You’re sure about that?”

Deanna stretched and rolled on her back, extending her arms over her head. “I’ve been sure since you told me you wanted to switch counselors. I’m hopeless that way. No way for me to think straight, once I fall. I just didn’t realize you were the same way.”

“Are you saying that neither one of us is being rational? I doubt that. You’ve been the sanest thing I have done lately.”

She laughed at him for it. “I shall accept your truth as my own.”

“They came all this way to meet you, you know.”

Deanna sighed and closed her eyes. “What did you tell them?”

“That Robert would love you. And he does, of course.”

“Marie talks about the two of you being so much alike -- it’s what makes the constant clash between you make sense. He digs in his heels and clings to what is so important to him, and so do you.”

He went silent. Overhead, through the viewport, she saw another starship drop out of warp, and glide by and disappear from view at impulse. Jean-Luc worked through another round of fighting with himself about something and then she felt his hand sliding up her ribs.

“I would have rejected that, before,” he mumbled. “But you’re right.”

“How long are they staying? I hope for a while.”

“You heard Robert -- he’s already worrying about his vines. But we shall see. Rene will be floored by the holodeck.”

They went quiet for a bit, and she wondered what he was thinking about. He sank into a quiet rumination. Obviously, he wasn’t going to sleep, and she knew she wouldn’t -- he was upset about something.

“You forwarded messages to me,” he said at last. “Did you listen to them?”

“No. Why?”

“I don’t think you will have to go to court.”

Deanna’s heart sped up at that. “What?”

“Will sounds -- unhinged.”

“Gods,” she muttered, putting her hands over her face.

“I played them for the admiral. She’s not questioning any longer. She removed him from duty, effective last night. I recommended that she put him in custody.”

“Jean-Luc….”

“You’ll probably have to talk to her about it. Once that’s over with you’ll be able to move on without further difficulties.”

“Are you going to take Robert and Marie on the tour while I’m in debriefing?”

“Do you want us to wait for you?”

“No, I -- it sounds horrible. But I think I’ll want a few hours by myself, in a holodeck, to meditate. The way I’m feeling now….”

He reached for her and gathered her up against his chest, and she lay in silence for the rest of the time they had together before Alexander woke up. It helped her be calm, at last, but she couldn't shake the feeling of dread.

Alexander registered the difference -- when he noticed, he immediately quieted, and kept watching her over breakfast. Jean-Luc took him to school, and Deanna spent a few moments sitting quietly before heading up to deck two to the conference room on deck two.

Nechayev and Ross were already there. Sympathy flickered in her eyes briefly but she greeted Deanna by rank, asked her to be seated, and with her back to the stars Deanna composed herself and waited to answer questions.

“You gave us a very thorough report, Commander,” Ross said, waving the pad in his hand. “Thank you. There are some questions we need to ask.”

“Certainly,” Deanna said with a slight smile.

“There are discrepancies when we look at Lieutenant Llaren’s report.”

“Ro,” Deanna corrected. “I expect so. She was more sympathetic to the Maquis and likely had difficulty accepting the true nature of some of her companions.”

“You are sympathetic to the Maquis,” Nechayev said quietly, questioning it with a flavor of disapproval.

“I’m sympathetic to anyone who has felt their options were taken away, their lives impacted by manipulations of others. Feeling as though your entire life is restricted or changed forever, by someone else without respect for your freedom of choice.” She kept the smile, though she wasn’t feeling it. “I am an officer and I took an oath. But I understand why others choose as they do. If Starfleet made me choose, I would choose family.”

Both admirals stared at her and she wondered what Ross knew. Probably everything. He was sympathetic enough.

“The people you list whom you flag as officers -- you distinguish between them and former officers, based upon what you sensed?” Nechayev spoke in a clipped, almost angry tone.

“I asked if they left Starfleet to join the Maquis. They said that they had, however, I knew that was a lie. And when I returned and checked their service records, that confirmed they were still officers on active duty, albeit detached duty.”

Nechayev stared at her, as did Ross, but Ross was outwardly calm, yet feeling some anxiety. While the fleet admiral ruminated with more emotion than that -- she had a suspicion as well.

“We will investigate the matter further,” Nechayev said with a tight smile. “Do you feel that Ro Llaren has told us the truth in her report?”

“I spoke with her recently. She said that she had included everything -- she told the truth about that. I have not reviewed her report, myself.”

Nechayev went on to list out various things, referring to a padd, and Deanna went through it all with the admirals -- it was a typical redundant briefing for a while.

“I want to thank you again, for your assistance -- the fruits of your efforts will save many lives. I would like to move on now, to the other matter,” Nechayev exclaimed, and anger became a part of her personal bouquet of emotions.

“I spoke to Captain Ren yesterday and provided a full statement.”

“Yes, I’ve spoken to him, and shared with him also the messages your captain forwarded to me.” Nechayev’s mouth twisted -- she had a familiar ire settling into her stomach. “I found those most disturbing of all.”

“I haven’t heard them, and I don’t believe I want to. I suspect, based on what I sensed the last time I saw him, that he is losing control of himself, as it becomes apparent that he no longer has control of circumstances -- he has always been certain that he would be able to do as he pleases without being found out. I wish I had been able to see what he was doing sooner.”

“We always learn so much in hindsight,” Nechayev said. The clipped, businesslike tone was gone. “How many statements have you accumulated, now?”

“I haven’t looked today. We had more than two hundred, yesterday. I will forward the rest to you later today.”

“And Dr. Crusher’s analysis of the injuries Riker sustained that night, in addition to the reports of his behavior just yesterday, it all adds up to what appears to be an open and shut case.”

“Even so… there is the possibility that he will still contest it all,” Deanna said faintly.

Now she had two admirals staring in surprise. “Surely not,” Ross exclaimed.

“It is easy, as you say, to be clearer about things in retrospect. Once I started to think about traits and symptoms it became obvious to me that there was significant indicators of psychopathy. I hope he is assessed thoroughly, and offered treatment.”

Nechayev relaxed slightly at that. “I will be making just that request, for a full evaluation. You are, I hope, accessing counseling services yourself?”

Deanna nodded slowly. She would, at some point, after all. Just not today.

“I find it disturbing that such an officer could have perpetrated such deception,” Ross exclaimed.

Deanna stared at him and wondered if he had heard any of the debriefing, that he would say that and sound so convincing, without a shred of honesty. “Admiral, I wish I could say that. But I have not the luxury of idealism, when I am surrounded by people whose baser instincts can be so clear to me. I think that possibly living in a paradise such as Betazed, where even the weather is controlled, did not help me prepare for such things.”

Ross leaned forward slightly. “Commander, am I understanding you correctly, that Riker is not the only one you’ve met with this level of… pathology?”

“I assume you mean the only Starfleet officer. He is not the only one. Perhaps the worst one, but there have been others. Again, I’m thinking in retrospect -- one of the biggest problems is being blinded by optimism. We want to think this would not happen, because the Federation is beyond such things. So we don’t look for the signs. The farther removed a society is from this sort of problem, the more difficult it is to recognize it or deal with it.”

She thought about the Maquis, people forced into impossible choices and then labelled as terrorists, as she spoke and wondered whether the admirals would make the connection. Ross looked to the fleet admiral, and Nechayev inhaled deeply, sighed and nodded. “Would you be willing to tell us who else you have observed to be exhibiting such… symptoms?”

“As a counselor, that would be my obligation. If I saw that the symptoms presented a risk to anyone else. However, what I sense from people, I tend to keep to myself -- I actively ignore what I sense the majority of the time. There’s really no way to predict whether or not someone will act on what they feel. I have on occasion approached people, to question and explore their thoughts, when I have sensed disturbing levels of anger or frustration.”

Nechayev nodded. “Of course. Thank you, Commander -- you may go.”

When she left the room, the admirals stayed seated, and in the corridor Lieutenant Ruan waited -- Deanna stared at her for a few moments, nodded, and moved on.

Going home to meditate no longer felt possible. She walked and rode a lift, and walked some more, and as she approached holodeck two she sensed Mike inside. And then the door opened unexpectedly at her proximity.

“Hey,” Mike called out, out of breath.

Deanna smiled at him, hanging from a bar in what appeared to be an immense obstacle course -- bright white and gray walls and flooring, with stanchions, ladders, rings, ropes, bars and other infrastructure filled the vaulted space. She stepped into the door and surveyed the far ends of the room -- a water obstacle, too. A wall to climb.

“You should lock your door. I was just walking by.”

“You just talked to the admirals?”

“Yes, how did you know?”

Mike swung from the bar and flipped, dropping to the floor to his feet. “I was in before you. I said something about feeling sympathetic to the Maquis and Nechayev gave me a look -- you’d think I shot her mom. And then she had a question about Riker’s reprimand -- I told her the captain had stated he would re-evaluate that situation and reverse it, if possible. And then I came here and started running the course, because who needs to keep the Nechayev afterglow? Want to join me?”

Deanna grinned, and went to change out of uniform, into some gray sweats. And when she returned, she started the course in the corner, behind him, and Mike stayed ahead of her -- she wasn’t as fast but the workout was adequate to the job of sweating out the stress.

She was on the second trip around the course and moving faster now that she’d had practice, dropping off the last ring and running at the wall, when the door opened again. She didn’t have time to look over or sense anything, strenuous exercise tended to be enough to distract her from empathic input -- she hit the wall, scrabbling for finger holds, and hauled herself upward as quickly as she could, reached the top, rolled over, and landed on her feet. Two running steps and she leaped, easily grabbing the knotted rope and swinging across the pool, leaping to the platform then sliding down the sides of the ladder to the bottom.

“Captain,” Mike exclaimed, his formal greeting echoing through the room.

Deanna had just started a run at the steeplechase section -- at the first barrier as Mike spoke she went from headlong dash and coordinated to surprised and lead-footed in seconds, and her toe caught the edge. Over she tumbled, head first, and landing in a pile, and of course, there was that sudden sharp pain that said her number was up. The spirit of the water buffalo was upon her.

She started to swear profusely at it in Nausicaan. Sprawling on her back, she put a hand to her left side.

Mike galloped over and hit his knees. “You all right?”

“Cracked a rib. Damn it, Mike!”

“What happened?”

“Did I mention my spirit animal is the water buffalo?”

He helped her up carefully. And of course, Jean-Luc was there, with Robert and Marie. All three of them had concerned expressions.

“Where the hell did you learn Nausicaan?” Jean-Luc exclaimed.

“I’m fine, thanks,” she blurted. “Two ribs, this time.”

“How did you make it all the way around with such skill and suddenly become me at thirteen?” Mike asked with a grin.

“I’m going to sickbay,” she said miserably.

“Mike, why don’t you show my brother and sister-in-law how the holodeck works? This is our security chief, Michael McCormick -- Robert and Marie Picard. I’ve been showing them around the ship this morning.”

Mike greeted them cordially, while Jean-Luc took Deanna’s arm and walked with her. She tried to move stiffly without twisting her torso and aggravating the cracked ribs.

“How did it go with the admirals?” he murmured as they entered the lift.

“Fine, so far as I know. They apparently have meetings scheduled with a number of people today.”

“Yes, for a number of reasons. Your spirit animal?”

Deanna sighed and pressed her hands to her ribs. “Computer, Sickbay.”

Jean-Luc followed her into main sickbay. When Beverly looked up from a crewman’s wrist, she turned at once, alarmed. “Selar,” she exclaimed. “Come help the ensign. Captain?”

“Broken ribs,” Deanna said, wincing when a brief pain stabbed through her when she twisted a little heading for the biobed Beverly was gesturing at.

“The water buffalo’s revenge?” Beverly asked with dark amusement as she saw Deanna to the bed and helped ease her down on her back. She closed the wings of the regenerator over her patient. “We’ll get it fixed up in no time.”

While the osteo-regenerator did its magic, sending soft pangs of sensation through her torso, Deanna stared at the ceiling of sickbay and wished she didn’t know that ceiling so well.

“So how long has self destruction been a habit of yours? Something I should look out for?” Jean-Luc asked, sounding vaguely amused. He stood at the head of the biobed, his hands resting on the ends of the pretense of a pillow under Deanna’s head. At least his face was a change of scenery.

“I think your spirit animal must be an asshole,” she muttered.

It made him grin -- almost made him laugh. “Oh, how the tables turn,” he said softly.

“Captain?” Beverly asked suspiciously, eyeing both of them instead of watching the biobed readouts as she had been.

“You never heard me shrieking at her, post-assimilation,” Jean-Luc confessed, surprising the doctor. “It’s just reaping what was sown.”

Deanna winced at a pang of pain in her side. “Too much intensity.”

Beverly adjusted the regenerator. Jean-Luc gazed down at her, going soft, and smoothed her hair back from her forehead. "I'll just hope this is the last sickbay visit for either of us, for a while. Perhaps you should take up knitting?" He was far too amused.

“I love you too, asshole,” Deanna murmured. "You and your puns. I already have."

His momentary confusion told her that it was unintentional, and she appreciated that he at least tried not to laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP Barry Jenner, aka Admiral Ross. Just found out he is deceased recently.


	31. Oo-mox and Earmuffs, Courting and Court-Martial

When they left sickbay, Jean-Luc took her back to the holodeck to find his brother, and as they approached the opening door Deanna saw at once that the demonstration of the holodeck was in full swing -- the interior now resembled a candle-lit ballroom, full of gentlemen with white wigs and women in elaborate dresses. Everyone seemed to be dancing, and Robert, Marie and Mike were nowhere in evidence.

“This looks Victorian,” Jean-Luc commented, mildly interested.

“Or four centuries ago on Betazed,” Deanna added. “Convergent fashion evolution?”

“Do you see them?”

Deanna took three steps forward and found herself swept off by one of the holodeck characters. She got away from the smiling man in the beribboned red coat and backed into a dancing couple, careened to and fro for a few minutes, made it to the other side of the ballroom and ran into a statue.

“Computer, delete characters,” Mike’s voice called out. He stood a dozen paces away, grinning at her, with Robert and Marie. “You know you can just tell the computer what to do, right?”

“Computer, kick Lieutenant-Commander McCormick’s ass,” she said with a grin.

“Unable to comply,” the computer said pleasantly.

It amused Robert, anyway. “You’re back from the sickbay and feeling better?” Marie asked, coming to her.

“Oh, yes. The regenerator and I are wonderful friends,” Deanna exclaimed. “I’m sorry I interrupted your tour.”

“Oh, no, my dear, I was happy for the break -- after the last few stops my brain is starting to feel full.” Marie smiled at Jean-Luc, as he approached unhindered now that the room was empty. “Please go on with Robert, dear.”

“We can take a break, you know,” Jean-Luc said.

Deanna sighed. “She wants to spend time with me. Go away.”

Jean-Luc gave a bark of laughter, raised his hands in surrender, and turned away. “Computer, exit. Let’s go see the bridge, Robert. I have something for you in the ready room.”

Robert lingered to kiss Marie on the cheek, and Deanna, and sauntered after his brother with a smirk. Mike was grinning ear to ear.

“When is Leila supposed to be here?”

He did a double-take. “Computer, time.”

“The time is twelve twenty-two and fifteen seconds.”

“Okay, running -- see you later,” he exclaimed, bounding for the exit.

Deanna faced Marie to find her smiling happily at her. “You’re sure you are feeling well? That was an impressive fall.”

“I’m fine, Marie. Our sickbay is up to the fight against my clumsiness. Computer, find a simulation of a Risan open-air bar, on a beach.”

Marie held onto Deanna’s arm when the ballroom vanished and a beach view appeared. Deanna pulled out a chair for her, and sat across the tiny round table, waving a hand. A waitress in a sarong sashayed over to them, and she ordered finger foods and drinks.

“Is it all edible?” Marie asked.

“The holodeck replicates edibles as needed. How are you enjoying your stay with us, so far?”

“It’s overwhelming,” Marie confessed, with the air of someone who’d been holding it in all day. “And Jean-Luc simply accepts it all as if it’s the most normal thing. He sounds like he could operate this ship all by himself, with everything he knows.”

“Oh, I doubt that. We would be lost without the engineering and operations departments. Where is Rene?”

“He wanted to stay at the school, when we went there. I hope he is enjoying it. Jean-Luc said he would take him on his own tour, later.” Marie watched the tray of finger foods arrive, and selected a glass from a tray of drinks. “This is much better, thank you,” she said with a sigh, sipping her Tolavian froth.

“The Galaxy-class ships are very large. A lot of walking despite the turbolift system. I think Jean-Luc is so used to it that he doesn’t think about how someone who might get less exercise would feel about taking on a full length tour.”

Marie sipped again, and smiled blissfully. She started to pick appetizers from the platter with one of the forks, transferring a variety of them to her plate. “What planet are we simulating now?”

“This is a bar on Risa. We’ve gone there for leave a number of times.”

“We have never been off Earth, until now. And I wonder if that was a mistake.” Marie shook her head slowly, looking up at the wispy white clouds in the blue sky. “Rene has been dreaming of Starfleet since Jean-Luc left, and with every year that passes, Robert becomes more worried. If it were not such a glorious unknown I wonder if it would hold the same fascination for him.”

“Then it’s a good thing you came to visit.”

Marie laughed lightly, picked up her drink, and raised it to Deanna. “You may not be my sister in law yet, but I do think you must be one soon.”

Deanna couldn’t force enough cheer into her smile. Marie put down her glass, and leaned across to put a hand on Deanna’s arm.

“What is it, dear?”

“I’m sorry. It’s been difficult since I returned to the ship.”

“The mission you mentioned -- is it something you can’t tell me?”

Marie was likely one of the few people she could talk openly with, at this point. As long as she kept details out of the conversation. “I had to pretend to be a dancer, to collect intelligence. There’s a lot I can’t tell you about that. But I was gone for five weeks, and it was so hard to leave Alexander -- I missed Jean-Luc as well. I knew it would be difficult for him, too. We have worked together for seven years, been good friends, but it wasn’t until recently that we started to talk about being together. It’s hard to describe how -- “

Marie ate a few appetizers slowly, thinking about it. “I imagine it must have been difficult to go from being a subordinate to being a spouse.”

“It’s not that, exactly. I’m not certain I can explain.”

“You love him, though. In spite of how difficult that is.”

“It’s not difficult to love him. It’s difficult to sense how he feels, and not -- I try to do nothing, say nothing, and react to the things he says instead. Not be pushy.”

“I hadn’t thought of that. But this talent of yours, now that you’re describing it, must make relationships hard to negotiate in general. And Jean-Luc is of course being his unique, stubborn self.” Marie popped a small appetizer in her mouth. She sat forward as something disturbing occurred to her. “He isn’t having second thoughts about marrying you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Wouldn’t you be able to tell?”

Deanna sighed. “Sometimes, feelings predict nothing. But that’s not what I’m anxious about -- I suppose it’s irrational of me, to feel like this.” She laughed at it bitterly. “Maybe it’s just that every time something seems to go well lately, something else happens?”

“Jean-Luc told me once that adventure and excitement were what drew him into Starfleet. Maybe you’re getting tired of excitement?”

Deanna nodded, and gave up on that line of conversation. Perhaps she would be able to talk to Beverly about it later. “So how did you and Robert meet?”

Marie’s smile turned mischievous. “Oh, you know, that’s quite a story. I met him sixteen years ago. I thought he was the most arrogant man I’d ever met.”

“And you don’t now?”

They laughed together, a little, sipping their drinks. Marie proceeded to tell the story of meeting Robert at social events, and avoiding him. Until her friend Cherise talked her into going to a party and she ran into him on a night that he didn’t already have a pretty girl on his arm, and he started to talk to her about France.

“So you were in London? What was he doing there?”

“Oh, he and a friend would come over from the continent, and -- “

The chirp of Deanna’s badge interrupted. “Crusher to Troi.”

“Yes, Doctor?”

“I was wondering if you would like to have a cup of tea in Ten Forward?”

“Or you could join us on Risa -- we’re on holodeck two.”

“That sounds even better. I’m on my way.”

Deanna smiled at Marie. “Beverly is a very good friend. She was the wife of Jean-Luc’s friend, Jack Crusher, until Jack died in the line of duty.”

“We met her briefly in sickbay,” Marie said. “She seemed… distant.”

“She was on duty. Here she is,” Deanna said. The holodeck door opened a hole in the scenery, and Beverly strolled in, still wearing her uniform.

“Hello, Mrs. Picard,” she exclaimed, coming to pull over a chair to sit with them.

“Marie, please,” Marie insisted.

“We were just talking about how she met Robert,” Deanna said. "Since I got back from sickbay. I think Robert and Jean-Luc are drinking in the ready room."

Beverly smiled at Deanna in that teasing, happy-for-you way. Deanna frowned back. “That was cute, in sickbay,” Beverly said.

Deanna rolled her eyes and sunk in her chair a little, looking away down the beach. “Good god.”

“Oh, come on, Deanna, he brought you all the way to sickbay, he stood there being sweet and funny with you, and the nurses are still grinning about it.”

“I was telling Robert this morning that he’s different about you,” Marie said. “Robert thinks he is being cold, because he hardly touches you. I told him not to make assumptions.”

“He hardly touches her in public. The thing about Starfleet captains -- they all adapt to the difficulties of being in charge on a ship that spends months at a time in space isolated from the rest of the Federation. There’s a tightrope they walk, with the crew. Jean-Luc had some difficulties in the past, being too close to subordinates, and swung the other way, hard, for a long time. And now he’s trying something he’s never done before.”

Deanna stared at her friend, thankful she had moved on from teasing or laughing about the captain’s affections, but wondering where this would go.

Marie was nodding, smiling with her own fondness for her brother-in-law. “Robert does not like change. I think Jean-Luc must have changed more than Robert thinks, because the things he said -- when he came to us after that time he was assimilated -- what an inaccurate label, that is. It doesn’t describe how difficult it was for him. You have that look that says I am doing something wrong.”

Deanna flinched. “Oh, nothing wrong, Marie, I’m simply not used to listening to someone talk about that. I don’t discuss it with anyone. I can’t.”

Marie glanced from her to Beverly, puzzled. Beverly smiled in regret. “She and I were his doctor and counselor, after that. Everything we saw and did is confidential. You don’t have the same restriction on you, Marie, so please feel free to continue.”

“That’s right,” Marie exclaimed. “He said something about that. A therapist who helped him come back. So that was you.”

Deanna said nothing, didn’t even smile at it. Marie cocked her head, bemused. And smiled.

“So this is how you are, as a counselor. You have this demeanor -- I see this pattern, with the doctor and the therapist, and who you are just relaxing. I have to think that I haven’t seen the captain yet.”

“A little, some of the time,” Deanna said, grinning. “I think it’s interesting that Robert thinks he’s cold. The part he is missing is that both of us are in positions where being ourselves can interfere with the jobs we do. Jean-Luc chooses to comport himself as he does -- I have the same choice as Dr. Crusher, none at all. You can’t treat a patient as a best friend. It’s less complicated for Beverly, my job is essentially forming a relationship with each person, and the nature of the relationship is key to the work being done.”

“Why are we sitting around talking about this when we could be shopping?” Beverly asked.

“Shopping? Where?” Marie was intrigued.

“On the starbase. We didn’t take you to the commercial decks -- are you interested in seeing shops full of things from other worlds?” Deanna asked.

“Well, yes,” she exclaimed, setting down her glass.

“We have about an hour before school is out. Do we want to take Alexander and Rene with us?” Deanna asked.

It took a little time, to be ready to go -- Deanna still had the sweats on, Beverly wanted to change out of the uniform into civilian clothing -- so in the end the kids were picked up about half an hour before the end of the school day. They used the transporter to get to the starbase, and Marie remarked that the process was much less jarring than the public ones on Earth.

By the fifth store, the boys were getting restless following three women with more interest in clothes and boring souvenirs than in toys or food. Since they were in a large department store with a food section on the other end, Deanna and Marie let them wander that direction to choose one item they wanted.

“This,” Beverly said, picking a hair net of fine silver chain and brilliant green gemstones. “What do you think?”

Deanna studied it as the doctor held it against a patch of the green dress Beverly had purchased in the last store. “It appears to match.”

Marie turned from the rack of hair ornaments to look at it. “It’s beautiful. What are they? I’ve never seen emeralds that glowed.”

Deanna didn’t hear the response from Beverly -- she stiffened and immediately focused on the sharp fear she sensed, coming across to her like a blade to the forehead.

“Dee?” Beverly exclaimed.

Deanna ran, dodging other patrons and shelving, almost pushing people aside. “Alexander!”

She made a circuit of the store, ignoring the shouting of the store’s owner, and came to a halt in the broad corridor outside the front door. There were a lot of people milling and walking, but none of them were Klingon. Beverly was there at her side in a moment, grabbing her arm, the shopping bag swinging from her elbow.

“What’s happened?” Marie exclaimed breathlessly.

Deanna turned to Beverly and saw that the doctor was all officer, as she was. “Call station security. Have the ship scan for Klingon biosigns. Stay with Marie. I’m tracking them.”

“It’s going to be all right, we’ll find them,” Beverly told Marie. It was the last thing Deanna heard of them -- she launched into the crowded corridor and did as she had never done before, focused intensely on Alexander and tried to pull herself to him in her mind. It led to stumbling occasionally and being cursed at, but Alexander was afraid and getting angry. She wished she hadn't worn the long blue dress; it was difficult to run with the volume of the loose skirt.

She could tell when she was close -- she no longer had to focus as much, and her sense of Alexander, and now Rene, was much easier to triangulate -- they were directly ahead of her somewhere as she stood outside one of the few hotels that were not operated by the base itself. In the lobby, she glanced around -- the only person present was behind the counter. Everything was gleaming gold or upholstered a garish shade of red. The clerk was a mousy little creature of a species she didn’t care to remember.

“You saw two children. Where are they?”

Her tone held ire, and when the creature merely shrugged, she repeated the question with anger, and then started to come over the counter toward him -- when her hands were on the stone surface and her body weight was shifting forward, he finally stammered, “In the lift.”

“Which floor did they go to? Look at your computer and tell me,” she exclaimed firmly, not letting him deny he could.

“Fifth,” he squealed.

Once in the corridor on the fifth floor, it was simple enough to hone in on the right door. She ignored the tone from her comm badge, hidden under the lapel of the blouse she wore, and knocked loudly, pushed the annunciator panel, and when nothing happened, started to kick and pound with a fist. "Housekeeping!"

The instant the door opened she snatched for the throat -- it registered as squealing began that she had a Ferengi by the ear, and began to twist it as she shoved into the room. A guttural exclamation alerted her and she yanked the Ferengi around just in time to use him to shield herself against a blast from an energy weapon. She heard Alexander shouting as she picked up the much-shorter alien in her hands and half-shoved, half-threw him in the direction from which the weapons blast had come.

It took seconds to wrest the weapon from the flailing fat little Ferengi and turn it on the two prone kidnappers as they scrambled to their feet. And then she had time to glance around at the room. The boys were sitting on a sofa at the other end, watching with big eyes, grinning.

She finally tapped the badge, now chirping incessantly. “Troi here,” she said calmly. “I’m on the fifth floor of the Nagnon Hotel, in a room, holding two kidnappers at gunpoint. Everyone is fine.”

“We’re on our way,” Beverly exclaimed over the comm channel.

“I told you,” Alexander announced smugly. “I told you they wouldn’t get away with it! They never do!”

“Where is Bok?” Deanna demanded of the Ferengi. She didn’t need to sense anything from them -- neither Ferengi was surprised, and they were incredibly bad actors.

“We don’t know what you are talking about,” one of them sneered, cowering.

“You want to take all the blame for kidnapping children. I’m sure Bok will appreciate that, as well as not having to pay you for assuming the risk and taking on the work.”

The smaller of the two frowned. The fatter, larger one sneered.

Station security got there first. Three lieutenants and a lieutenant-commander started to examine the room, confiscated the weapon, interviewed the boys, asked Deanna all the questions -- she answered them all. She let the security officers leave with the Ferengi before collecting the boys and walking them out.

Now the lobby was full of people, and one step out of the lift and Rene ran for his parents, into Marie’s arms. Alexander clung to her hand as they approached Jean-Luc, standing with Beverly and looking quite satisfied.

“You didn’t wait for security,” he chided.

“Some day the Ferengi might stop hiring the cheapest idiots, but today was not that day,” she replied. “Alexander did well.”

“I told Rene not to fight them, and you would come get us,” Alexander said.

“And so she did. Are you hurt?”

Alexander shook his head. “They were talking about not getting much if we were damaged.”

“Bok likely would have let them sell the boys as part of their payment,” Deanna said.

Marie came and hugged her tightly, feeling overwhelmingly happy and relieved. “I'm so glad you are all right -- how did you know where they were? How did you -- the officer said you had apprehended them?”

Deanna took a moment to hug the woman and ground herself. Too much going on emotionally in the room -- between Jean-Luc’s complicated emotions of ire at finding out it was Bok, his relief, his anxiety, and everyone else’s high state of anxiety, it was becoming difficult to think.

“She’s an officer,” Jean-Luc said quietly.

“She was amazing,” Rene exclaimed, jumping in to hug her as his mother pulled away. “She threw him! Across the room! Papa, you should have seen it!”

“I would have liked to -- come here, my dear,” Robert exclaimed, coming around for a bear hug.

It took another twenty minutes for everyone to calm down -- the station commander himself, Commander Klim, arrived to ask a few questions of Deanna directly. There were still onlookers milling around in the corridor outside the hotel. Jean-Luc decided, rather than face onlookers, to have everyone beamed directly back to the ship.

Once back in their quarters, Deanna sat down in one of the chairs and quietly went about facing the situation, now that she could. Alexander proved that he was more sensitive than the usual Klingon, by coming over to lean his head on her shoulder.

“I know it’s okay,” she murmured. “Go make a snack and do your homework in your room. You didn’t get one in the store, after all.”

Rene, restlessly hovering, said, “I have homework too.”

“Then perhaps you should do the same,” Robert said. He sat in the middle of the couch and sprawled, as usual. Rene ran after Alexander.

Beverly dropped the shopping bag and plopped on the end nearest Deanna’s chair, and put a hand on her knee. “Thank you, for not making me chase anyone,” she exclaimed. “And not making me stick you back under that regenerator again.”

“The water buffalo was appeased already today. It wasn’t particularly difficult -- Ferengi have very sensitive ears.”

“They looked -- interesting, these Ferengi,” Marie said. She gave Robert something to drink, went back to the replicator, returned with a glass for herself, and settled under her husband’s arm. His hand dropped to her shoulder.

Jean-Luc came and instead of being predictable, he perched on the end of the coffee table, tea-less, and looked Deanna in the eye.

“You said Bok had something to do with this?”

Deanna sighed, slumping in the chair, which was difficult to sit up in anyway -- the dress she wore was sliding on the smooth upholstery. “Are you being pursued by other Ferengi that I don’t know about?”

“I suppose if he found out about Jason, he would find it easier to discover the rest of my family,” Jean-Luc said with a dread she didn’t like.

“We’ll find him -- I’ll give him oo-mox he’ll never forget, and Beverly will send his testicles to the Ferengi consortium.”

He chuckled, at least. Deanna glanced at his brother and back, and he gave her a grim look, and turned to them. “There is a Ferengi who blames me for the death of his son, after a battle that took place while I was still in command of the _Stargazer_ years ago. He sent me a message informing me that he would kill a young man I’d never heard of, supposedly a son of mine.”

“”You don’t sound so convinced as you did,” Beverly commented.

“I’m struggling with the idea that Miranda would say nothing at all to me. Even if she didn’t need help, I have difficulty believing she wouldn’t give the boy a chance to meet his father. That would be unlike her.”

Robert almost said something -- Deanna sensed the intent and the mischief. But he didn’t, his eyes flitting to her, and she smiled pleasantly at him as a reward. And Jean-Luc chuckled at it.

Deanna nudged Jean-Luc’s knee with her toe. “You have three days to figure out what to do with the young man. Let Beverly run more specific testing, if he’ll agree to it.”

Jean-Luc looked askance at the doctor. She shrugged. “That result they forwarded was from an outdated method of genetic testing. There are several ways to force a positive result with that method.”

“Is it normally so stressful, for you?” Marie exclaimed. “I begin to wonder if it is always one thing after the next?”

“Sometimes it feels like it is the same damned thing over and over,” Jean-Luc said.

Deanna groaned, sitting up suddenly. It led to Jean-Luc standing up, which was fine, as the annunciator went off then. He admitted the guest, which turned out to be Captain Ren.

The genial Trill glanced around the room, but addressed Deanna. “I have an update for you, that I thought I would deliver in person. Would you prefer privacy?”

“This is fine, Captain, thank you. Has something changed?”

“Captain Riker has been officially charged. He waived the pre-trial hearing, and remains in custody. He is opting for a panel. We will need a three-fourths majority to convict. I predict a high probability of conviction."

“Is there a timetable?"

"Yes, we will be here at the starbase for two weeks -- it will take time to find panel members. We're looking for captains and admirals. If you wish, I will convene our pre-trial meeting in four days, as I am still reviewing everything you have provided."

"Yes. Just send me the time and place."

“As you wish.” Ren bowed slightly. “I heard about what you did, today on the station. I suspect there may be some amount of friction with the Ferengi -- one of the two is requesting legal action.”

“Since one of them tried to shoot me and the other helped the first kidnap two children? Let them try. Or just let them go, I’ll drag them around the station by the ears until they can understand I won’t let them steal my son.”

“Hell hath no fury,” Ren commented. “Thank you, Commander.”

After the captain had departed, Beverly stood up. “I’m going to go.”

“Go what?” Deanna asked, not liking her level of anger.

“My first impulse was to find Will and kick his testicles into his ears, but I think I’ll settle for starting to get ready for this big formal dinner Captain Uptight is having.”

It must have caught him just right -- Jean-Luc started after her, and she broke into a run. He stopped in the door and was on the verge of going down the corridor after her, but came back inside shaking his head.

“It’s funny because it was true,” Deanna said. “You get looser as you go, however.”

“You’re lucky I like you,” he said haughtily.

“I shall accept your truth as my own.” She let her head fall against the back of the chair, and he stared down at her.

“Perhaps we should sell tickets,” he said. “Beverly’s suggestion has a certain suitability to the occasion.”

“It’s just this officer, who attempted to rape me,” she said at last, turning to their poor guests to answer the intense curiosity radiating from her almost-in-laws. “Beverly keeps threatening to neuter him.”

Robert proved he was related to Jean-Luc, by making an intuitive leap and grinning. “What did you do to him, when he tried?”

“Punched him in the face, knocked him down, and ran. In retrospect, perhaps I should have rearranged his body parts at that time. Saved Beverly the trouble.”

“And the fact that he showed up with his balls in his ears for the next briefing would have alerted me to the problem,” Jean-Luc said. “This could have been taken care of well before now.”

“Because you would have said, ‘Will, why the hell are you wearing your balls in your ears?’ And he would have blamed Beverly, because no one suspects the sweet little dark-eyed one and it would be far too embarrassing to admit that anyone half his size tore him up.”

“Oh, he wouldn’t have said anything of the sort. He wouldn’t hear me ask -- he had testicular earmuffs on.”

Marie laughed, likely at the sheer lunacy of it, and Deanna laughed because he’d said ‘testicular earmuffs’ as if it were an everyday sort of thing. And then the kids returned, Jean-Luc checked the time, the intended schedule resumed, Robert and his family left to get ready, and Deanna embraced the normalcy of choosing a dress and shoes for dinner.

Except she ended up sitting on the end of the bed, in panties and a strapless bra, feeling numb.

Jean-Luc came into the bedroom. "You should see Alexander -- " He hesitated, and approached more slowly. "Deanna?"

"I'll be all right," she blurted, getting up.

"Hang on, take a deep breath," he said, catching her shoulder. "Come on. Look at me."

"I need to get dressed, so do you. Data will have holodeck one up and running, everyone will be waiting."

"Stop, Deanna, look at me."

She finally obeyed, and his eyes caught her for a breathless moment. The numbness abated somewhat. Jean-Luc sighed, leaned in to kiss her cheek, and hovered there, waiting.

"This is the kind of thing that kept me alone for years," he murmured. "I thought it was easier that way. You taught me that the adrenal fatigue can be countered. It's been difficult since Worf died -- you need to rest, recover, and things aren't letting you do that. You aren't helping by pushing yourself."

"But I want to go," she whispered.

"Then take a shower and let's go. But take a moment to meditate, too."

She emerged from the bathroom to find him waiting -- in a tuxedo, an old-fashioned one at that, and holding a shimmering golden gown. She put on underwear, stepped into the gown, let him fasten the back. While she did her hair he fastened his mother's necklace around her neck and dragged his fingertips across the bare skin of her shoulder, leaned down to kiss her cheek, and left the bedroom. Deanna smiled and relaxed for a moment, closing her eyes, then finished braiding a long silver chain into her hair. He returned while she put the second golden earring in her ear.

"For your hair," he said, holding out a red rose. She tilted her head and he pushed the stem in over her right ear, and she added a pin to keep it in place. And then he held out an open hand, with a ring in his palm.

"It all felt contrived, everything I tried to imagine -- I thought about getting you in the holodeck in Paris, or any of a thousand other places. I can't take you to Paris. But you seem to want me anyway -- if that's what you want, I can't withhold it. I love you, Deanna."

She smiled, and knew she wasn't going to stop any time soon. "Jean-Luc," she whispered, picking up the ring -- the diamond matched the necklace.

When they emerged from the bedroom, Alexander came to attention in his own little tuxedo -- a copy of the one Jean-Luc wore. He grinned at the sight of her.

"Did you do it?"

Deanna gave Jean-Luc a suspicious look. He shrugged. "It seemed the logical thing to do at the time. Wouldn't want to upset your son, after all."

"Let's go," Deanna said, tucking her left hand through Jean-Luc's arm. She gestured with her right, and Alexander came to take her hand, and the three of them went forth to find a holodeck full of their friends.

When they arrived, the holodeck doors opened to reveal a banquet table surrounded by their friends, all standing around with drinks in hand, all wearing formal civilian clothing -- it was night time, and the Eiffel Tower stood in the distance, lit by strings of lights, while the crescent moon glowed off to the right over the city of Paris.

Data stepped forward and raised a glass. "Congratulations," he said, smiling affectionately.

Deanna returned the smile, glancing at Jean-Luc, and at Alexander. "I sense a conspiracy."

"Pass the inhibitor and join us," Beverly exclaimed. "A toast -- to the captain and his fiancee."

Deanna closed her eyes and floated on the wave of happiness from her friends, and the love from her family. She let them lead her forward and loved them all right back, continuously. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Procedure for court-martial taken from a guide to military legal proceedings designed to inform the media. Perhaps not rigidly adhering to martial law, but close enough.


	32. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Acceptance

Deanna heard the door open and turned with empty breakfast dishes in hand. Jean-Luc returned from walking Alexander to school with a smile. They had gone to bed late, slept soundly, and he had spent the morning so far in a very good mood.

“I hope we can have a relatively uneventful day,” he said. “I have high hopes of spending a few hours actually talking to you, without interruption.”

“The dinner was very nice, though. Everyone was so happy for us. Leila’s lovely, and you….”

“Me?” he echoed, plucking a cup of tea from the replicator. 

“If I can just cling to that memory of you being so relaxed and wonderful, I should be able to stop feeling so uneasy.”

Jean-Luc settled in one of the chairs and watched her come to sit near him on the couch. “Uneasy about me?”

“I don’t know. It’s one of those transient things that happens to me from time to time. I get this feeling, that something’s amiss. Off. Although I haven’t felt that way since yesterday, and then you gave me the ring -- “

The annunciator interrupted her. Of course. His mouth tightened but he said, “Come in.”

The officer that strolled in held out a padd in their general direction. Jean-Luc took it, and without a word the lieutenant strode out again. 

“Well, there we are,” he said with an incredulous note in his statement. He tossed the padd away at the far end of the couch; it hit the arm and slid off, falling to the floor. “We’ve been counter-accused, of slander. Perhaps they’ll let us get through the first court-martial and drop this one before it starts.”

“Perhaps I’m uneasy because of Will. Now I’m feeling that wonderful sinking sensation of being right, that it’ll never be easy, and he’ll never give up on getting back at me for failing to worship him in the ‘appropriate manner,’” she said miserably.

“Or, perhaps we’ll be able to work this out and get married, and never hear from him again. Have ten children and twenty grandchildren.”

“Ten… really?”

“Two?”

Deanna moaned, leaning back and watching him through her eyelashes. “You think we’re going to work this out in a few hours?”

“No, I’m hoping it won’t take more than a minute or two, so we can spend the rest of the time doing something else.”

She was laughing, while he smirked at her, when Beverly and Wesley arrived. Neither one of them was happy, so their mirth diminished rapidly.

Deanna sat up, smoothing her skirt over her knees. “What’s wrong?”

“Mom thinks I should talk to you before I go see Comm -- Captain Riker,” Wes said.

Deanna exchanged a wary look with Jean-Luc. “You’ve been told already what he’s done,” Jean-Luc said, his arms resting along the arms of the chair. He didn’t approve, judging from the hard tone.

“He’s not going to be the same, Wes,” Deanna said sadly.

“Probably not, but I’m having trouble understanding it -- I can’t reconcile it,” he exclaimed. “I thought if I talked to him it might be easier for me to understand how he’s changed.”

Deanna looked at the floor and thought about her uneasiness, which had returned. Jean-Luc watched her with trepidation. When she looked at him and started to speak, he said, “No.”

“Conversation with you is interesting, now,” she said, folding her hands on her lap. “It’s almost like talking to Mother.”

“You’re not going with him. Let him go without you.”

Beverly felt the same, and crossed her arms tightly and scowled down at Deanna. “You want to go because letting him verbally abuse you some more sounds like fun?” she exclaimed scornfully.

“I think I need to talk to him. He might hear me by now.”

“Then I’m going with you,” Jean-Luc said.

Deanna gave him a canny smile that made Wesley uncomfortable. Jean-Luc was a little taken aback as well. “Because I’m risking my life, confronting someone behind a force field? I’m taking Ro with us.”

“You think this is a good idea?”

“I’m not thinking about it. I have a hunch.”

“Well, go, then. Your hunches got me back from places I wouldn’t expect to return from, you may as well,” he exclaimed. His tone softened, after a pause. “As long as you come back.”

She stood, put her hands on the arms of his chair, leaned down to kiss his forehead, and headed past Beverly for the door. “Coming, Wes?”

It took him ten minutes to get over the shock. They waited in the transporter room for Ro, and Deanna could tell Wes wanted to say something but hesitated due to the presence of the transporter chief. Ro showed up in uniform, smiling -- last night she had enjoyed the formal dinner despite initially feeling awkward as hell in a gown. She’d spent most of the evening chatting with Geordi and eventually started to break out of her shell, as Jean-Luc had led the way, teasing Deanna and letting her tease back.

“You sure you want to do this?” she asked Deanna.

“I’m sure it will be interesting. You’re up to it, then?”

“Let’s go.”

Materializing on the starbase and navigating from the transporter pad nearest the brig was uneventful -- the Starfleet levels were not crowded at all. The lieutenant at the main desk didn’t bat an eye at their request. 

Each cell had a small exterior chamber, for visitors, that allowed for some privacy. As the door to cell A2’s antechamber opened, Will Riker came up off the bench in his tiny prison and stood there in shock watching the three of them come in.

“Go ahead, Wes,” Deanna said calmly, crossing her arms and leaning against the back wall to the right of the door.

Wes approached to within a pace of the force field. A nervous grin flitted across his face. “All the normal stuff sounds ridiculous. Hi, Captain.”

Will stared at the young man he’d once mentored as if he’d just started to feel indigestion. “Hi,” he said sullenly. He wore a plain gray coverall with a reflective stripe down each sleeve.

“I wanted to see you, to -- I wanted to thank you. For everything you did for me, while I was aboard the _Enterprise_. I really appreciated all the time you spent with me.”

Will’s face softened somewhat. “It was no problem, Wesley -- I enjoyed helping you. I hope you’re doing well, at the Academy?”

Wes shrugged. “I dropped out. I’m working on applications, to the Daystrom Institute and MIT. I realized that being an officer wasn’t what I’m really cut out to do.”

Deanna almost spoke, but schooled herself to remain quiet. Will’s urge to snap at the boy came and went. She waited, exchanging a glance with Ro, who had mirrored her on the other side of the door.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Will managed. 

Wes frowned, glancing back at Deanna; not the response he had gotten from the captain, or his mother, or Data. Geordi had actually been enthusiastic upon hearing Wes’ interest in pursuing hard science rather than be an officer. 

“What?” Will exclaimed.

“I’m sorry you’re disappointed. I know you gave me a lot of advice, about becoming an officer and everything -- it just felt like -- like trying on shoes that don’t fit, after a while. Captain Picard -- “

Whatever Wes would have said was probably gone for good. The anger in Will’s face at the mention of Jean-Luc shocked him.

“Anyway. Guess I’ll go now.” Wes backed up slowly as if he couldn’t turn his back on Will.

“Thanks for dropping by, Wes,” Will said, sounding almost normal.

Deanna followed Wes out and hesitated until the door closed. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah. He’s really, really different, isn’t he?”

Rather than going into long explanations, Deanna said, “Yes. I’’m afraid so.”

“Thanks for… letting me say good bye, I guess.” 

“I’m sorry, Wes.” Deanna gave him a brief hug and watched him walk away, then re-entered to see how Ro was doing.

“It’s not true,” Will exclaimed. His eyes darted to Deanna as she came in, and the wall went up.

“If it isn’t true, how come there are so many complaints?” Ro asked. “How come people from the ship you were on before are filing complaints?”

“It’s all a matter of opinion, Llaren. Rewriting history is easy -- memories fade, and people are suggestible.”

“I’ve listened to the old logs that were made when the incident was fresh in their minds. Not sure you’re the objective voice with the truth, here,” Ro said.

Deanna smiled -- her confident, happy, not-taking-that-from-you smile, especially for people who knew her well enough and understood it.

“You know what we had was real,” Will murmured, in that intense way that convinced his target he was feeling those magical emotions that happened between a man and a woman.

“I’m going to say no, and thanks for the attempt, but you lied to me. I asked the doctor if Troi’s a telepath. She told me no, and Deanna did too, and it would be -- “

Will’s impulsive punch at the force field startled her. Ro jumped back a few feet.

“Let’s go, Ro,” Deanna said.

The Bajoran turned and started for the door. ”You don’t want to talk to him?”

“I thought I would, but he’s furious. Thinks we’re all turning against him because we don’t want to keep his secrets for him.”

He hit the field with both hands, and almost fell backward.

“I guess I’m still angry,” Deanna said, ignoring his tantrum. “Sorry, Will. Actually…there are quite a few things I am sorry about, between us. It’s hard, to have someone you loved turn into such an arrogant ass, about everything. Traumatic.”

“Yes, it is,” he said, quietly, startling Ro.

“Since you understand that much, perhaps you might understand how much more difficult it is when the arrogant ass tries to tear off your uniform, violently, and then attempt talk you into feeling for him in a way that you cannot manufacture -- certainly not after he bruised your chest and slapped you.”

Will stared at her, starting to resemble the predator he really was. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”

Of course, he believed it. Deanna crossed her arms tightly and forced herself to calm. “But you did. You never apologized, and you _went to sickbay_ because I had to defend myself and broke your nose. I never hit people in anger. I defend myself, if I have to, and I feel horrible for doing it afterward because I know how much pain I caused. I was angry at you for making me do that.”

“Deanna -- “ He was smart enough to catch himself, and revise. “Deanna. I went to work out the frustration and got into it with Worf. I don’t want to accuse you of anything, but -- ”

“If you truly want to embarrass yourself this much, go ahead and drag us all through court. I will tell them everything. I have nothing to hide. The forensics don’t support your story.”

He fumed at her, glaring, and the violent urge he felt repelled her. She was, not for the first time, happy she wasn’t telepathic.

“I’m so sorry, that I was never able to convince you to change the way you’ve been -- that I never realized how serious your symptoms were. I wish you had gone to counseling, one of those times I urged you to -- I wish everything could be different, Will. I wish you had decided to change.”

“Didn’t your attorney tell you not to talk to me?” he snapped.

Deanna sighed, smiling wearily. “He did not. But I suppose you’re right, and it’s folly to think I can expect anything from you other than more anger. Good bye, Will.”

She turned to go, the door opening, and Ro followed her out. At the main desk, she asked the sentry to send the last twenty minutes of the recording from cell A2 to Captain Ren.

“I think I really made a mistake,” Ro said with a grin as they left starbase security. “Not making friends with you before.”

Deanna stopped and gazed at her.

“You could have talked sense into me,” Ro said, with real regret.

“We should go. I told Jean-Luc I would be back soon.”

“Are you all right?” Ro asked, as they turned down the corridor toward the nearest transporter room.

“Yes. Just sad, that he’s turning it into such a circus for himself and everyone else.” Deanna stopped as if she’d walked into a wall. “Oh my god. We have to get back to the ship.”

“What? What?”

“I have to contact my mother, before she pays attention to the news.”

Ro parted ways with her outside the transporter room. Once back in quarters, she found everyone gone -- the computer informed her Jean-Luc had gone to Robert’s suite, and so she asked for an open channel to her mother, wherever she happened to be in the Federation.

“Deanna! My dear, dear little one. How are you? How is dear little Alexander, and have you married your captain yet?”

“Mother,” Deanna exclaimed hotly.

“Well, if you would just ease into a relationship instead of the usual torrid affair,” Lwaxana exclaimed as if completely exasperated with her own usual behavior. 

“Because being with someone who I’ve known for seven years qualifies as torrid, or an affair. There’s really nothing usual about me, Mother, and my ‘affairs’ can be counted on one hand.” As opposed to Lwaxana’s affairs, which ran into triple digits by now, probably.

“He’s a dear man, our captain, no doubt he’s presented you with his mother’s ring by now,” Lwaxana went on.

Deanna narrowed her eyes. “Mother?”

“It was so sweet of him to call and talk to me about it,” Mother said, with some additional crunching that said she was snacking while they talked.

Deanna put her face in her hands. “Mother.”

“He hopes to be able to invite us all, he said. Did you have to tell him about Tiklun? Surely you must have told him how idealistic it is, thinking your half brother would last five minutes in the room with you.”

“Mother,” she repeated wearily, hoping she was done.

“Just let me know where -- if you come to Betazed we will have the most wonderful party! I’ll have the acolytes from the Janaran Monastery in to carry you on a raft of flowers, make sure all of them are very well endowed -- at least as much as dear Jean-Luc, you’ll have to get his measurements, dear.”

“Mother.”

“I can tell there’s something you wish to tell me, so tell me already, little one.”

“You might see my name in the news. I am waiting to participate in a court-martial because Will Riker tried to rape me several months ago, and I found out he had assaulted other women, and so we are waiting for the trial to begin.”

The silence was expected. The sob was expected. “Oh, little one,” she said, her words tearful and pained. 

“I said that he tried. He did not succeed, and he is in custody. We’re all fine. I wanted you to hear the real story from me before it got into the news.”

“I’ll be on the next -- “

“Mother, please,” Deanna begged, “you don’t have to come. Don’t let us disrupt your schedule! I know you probably have -- “

“Deanna, you’re my daughter, and Alexander must be so upset!”

“Alexander doesn’t know and I don’t feel it is appropriate to tell him. The hearing will be closed to the public. Mother, please, it’s not going to be a long trial and it’s not worth all the travel for you -- I’d really much rather you came when I could take some leave and we could spend time on Risa with Alexander.”

“I always thought Will loved you,” Mother exclaimed wistfully, moving into the grieving phase of the conversation. “He was such a dear boy! Of course he was impulsive and clueless, leaving you that way -- I thought he would surely mature and -- “

“Mother, please. I don’t want to talk about what he was like. He isn’t that way any more. I’m hoping that the trial will be quick and we’ll be on our way to the next mission -- “

“I’ll find a way to get there, little one, don’t you worry about that. I’ll find William T. Riker and give him a good -- “

“He’s in custody behind a force field, Mother, and you would be arrested if you tried to break in to get to him! Please, please listen to me!”

“Deanna,” Lwaxana said angrily. “I am your mother. I’ve been around for far longer than you, and I know how things are, I understand the regulations for your precious Starfleet -- “

“Yes, and I’m actually here, now, Mother, please understand what I’m saying -- there’s really no reason for you to put yourself through all the trouble of coming all the way to the starbase. I might not even be here when you arrive -- that’s how quickly this is probably going to resolve.”

Another pause. “All right,” Lwaxana said, her tone making it obvious she was humoring Deanna. “All right, dear. I’ll just wait for you to send me the wedding invitation, or ask me to help you plan it?”

“Thank you, Mother. I love you.”

“And all my love to you, and to Alexander -- tell our little tiger that I fully intend to do as we planned. Thank you for calling, even if it was with such horrible news.”

“I’ll talk to you soon.”

After the channel closed, Deanna curled up in a ball on the couch and shut her eyes.

She woke up some unknown amount of time later, when the door hissed open. “Deanna?” Jean-Luc was there, his hand on her hair, and she opened her eyes to find him down on a knee, worry in his eyes.

“I had a talk with Mother, that’s all,” she murmured, sitting up slowly. 

He was alone, and pushed himself up to sit on the edge of the couch next to her. “I was with my family. I kept feeling… it was odd. Were you upset?”

“I was very upset, with Mother. She kept insisting she wanted to come, because of the court-martial, and I had to keep reassuring her. The last thing I need is to have to deal with her.” She studied his face at close range, sensing his relief. “You told her you were going to marry me?”

“Well, someone had to do it,” he said with a shy smile that said he’d been caught. 

“Do you know that I love you, Jean-Luc?” she whispered, leaning, presenting her lips for his attention. He kissed her gently. It started to become intense quickly, as she accepted his tongue into her mouth and sent her arms around his neck. His hands were at her chest, working the fasteners open on the front seam of the dress. 

“We should,” he murmured against her face. “Move.”

Deanna reluctantly pulled away from him and nodded, taking a deep breath. “We should.”

“Is there anywhere that you are supposed to….”

“No. But someone might come here.“

He went to the door and set it to privacy mode, and she followed him into the bedroom, slowly finishing the job of removing her dress. She slithered out of her panties and reached back to unhook her bra. Jean-Luc left the parts of his uniform draped over the chair at the dressing table, and approached her slowly.

“I would like you to be slow,” she whispered as his hands started at her sides and drifted to a hip and a breast. “Love me?”

“Let me look at you. Dance for me,” he breathed into her ear.

So she did -- unlike the role she played before, she played to the desires of the man in front of her, swinging her hips and swaying, so tempted to touch him and so careful not to. She came to him gradually, and finally his hands found her hips and he kissed her again. 

He guided her to the bed, and went to work making her nerve endings sing -- his tongue knew its targets. He loved her as he entered her, loved her sighs and gasps, and while her body did its best to mold itself to him she loved him in return. 

He came, exhaling against her ear, and she held him there and welcomed it with joy. They held each other and floated. And Deanna sighed, all her attention on him, all of her reaching for all of him. 

She woke again, to find him asleep. Something had awakened her. The tone sounded again, and Mike’s voice said, “Bridge to Picard.”

“What is it?” she said without thinking. Jean-Luc stirred, only to push closer, his arms pulling her back more tightly to his chest.

“The fleet admiral,” Mike said apologetically. 

Then he was awake -- Jean-Luc tensed, then shoved an elbow down, pushed away, raised his head. “Calling, or boarding?”

“She’s on her way to the bridge, sir.”

“I’ll be there in a few minutes. Picard, out.”

Deanna got up with him, showered with him, and then he spent a few seconds after speed-dressing with his lips grazing her ear before he hurried off to deal with it, and left her there, to finish putting on the rest of her uniform.


	33. Admirals, Admiration and Adaptation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Episodes referenced: Season 2, The Icarus Factor; Season 3, The Bonding

Mike turned from tactical when she came out of the lift. “Commander,” he said stiffly, and then less formally, “Leila enjoyed the dinner -- and I told her all about our mission, and she wants to meet you less formally, because we’d like that, so if you….”

“Is she staying aboard?”

“If the transfer is approved. She likes the _Valdemar_ but she likes me more.”

“We have positions open. There were several transfers, over the past month. And deaths. What’s her specialty?”

“Sciences -- she’s got degrees in archaeology and anthropology.”

“We’re going to be talking soon,” Deanna said, patting his shoulder. She went down to the ready room door, and signaled. 

The admiral had a cup of tea and there was a plate of Bolarian canapes between them on the desk. She smiled at Deanna as she came to attention. “Commander, I understand congratulations are in order?”

“Oh, I,” Deanna said, giving Jean-Luc a wide-eyed glance. “Yes.”

“I came to discuss your vessel's next assignment. And to let the captain know that I will be one of the panel participants at the Riker hearing,” she went on, her tone shifting to the quiet and serious. “I volunteered for it.”

“I’m sure that will be over soon. I know that he and his counsel know about the forensic evidence in the matter, so his insistence that this court-martial proceed is confusing to me.”

“Forensic….” Nechayev nodded. “When is the wedding?”

Changing the subject was understandable. It was a legal proceeding, and they shouldn't discuss it. “It’s been a little busier than usual, we haven’t talked about scheduling,” Deanna said. “We have the court-martial, and there's been an ongoing situation -- I’m expecting a call from security about yesterday’s entanglement.”

When the admiral was confused, Jean-Luc said, “That would be related, we believe, to the matter I brought to your attention -- Daimon Bok’s threats. There would be no other reason for them to single out two boys out of the crowd and kidnap them.”

“The boys are related to you?” 

“His nephew and stepson,” Deanna said. “Worf’s son is my foster son, and Rene is his brother’s son. His brother’s family came to see us, all the way from Earth.”

“Ferengi kidnapped two children on a Federation starbase?” she exclaimed. 

“Well, they tried. Deanna wouldn’t let them.” Jean-Luc covered his proud little smile by sipping tea. “She hunted them into the hotel they tried to hide them in. Starbase security caught their vessel as it was returning to the station for them. I am assuming that recent diplomatic endeavors have been making their presence on a Starfleet installation possible?”

“There have been changes, yes. It’s not an easy negotiation, as their ideas of commercial enterprise do not mesh with Federation policies.” Nechayev turned again to study Deanna, as she speared a canape with her fork. “Are you all right? The children?”

“We’re all fine,” Deanna replied. “The Ferengi seem to hire based on budget, it wasn’t so hard to disable them. I was a little surprised that Alexander did as I’ve told him to, he probably could have overpowered them himself.”

“Really?”

“Klingon children are on a different developmental schedule than humans. Alexander is large for his age -- he’s learning how to fight with a bat’leth.”

Nechayev ate another canape, and smiled with open feeling -- it was so unusual that Deanna sensed the jolt of surprise from Jean-Luc. “He’s in the ship’s school?”

“Yes, he is.”

“I don’t believe I’ve seen a school aboard a vessel -- would you mind indulging me, Captain?” 

To his credit, he recovered within seconds, snapping his mouth shut. “Of course. We might want to warn them we’re coming?”

Deanna contacted the teacher, let her know, as they left the bridge. Carla’s attempt at a warm response betrayed her tension -- a moment of focusing and Deanna understood why. Alexander was still in an anxious state, after yesterday’s adventure. 

“You need to talk to Leila McCormick,” she said to Jean-Luc as the lift carried them downward, breaking the silence.

“Is that an order?” Jean-Luc said lightly. His slight rise in anxiety said ‘not in front of the admiral, please.’

“A suggestion. I believe you have an opening in sciences? She’s an archaeologist and anthropologist. Sorry, Admiral, in addition to everything else, we’ve been discussing staffing issues.”

“I thought you were off duty.”

“Yes, well, I’ve obviously been a poor example in that regard, otherwise she would be acting that way,” Jean-Luc said, giving her a stern look.

As they left the lift on the correct deck, Deanna walked with the admiral, hands behind her back. “Several of the children have lost parents in the line of duty. Alexander, Jeremy Aster, the Garcia twins -- Captain?”

“Twins?”

Deanna smiled at him. “You didn’t know? Ingabo and Elgabo Garcia are Alexander’s best friends. I suppose, though, that the times you’ve seen Bo come over it’s only been one at a time…. They both respond to Bo.”

“There is a certain efficiency in that -- call one name, get both children,” Jean-Luc commented. 

“They tend to act as a unit.” Deanna led them into the school and found all the children seated -- the desks were always pointed at the wall to the right of the door, so they entered to a dozen smiling faces. Alexander, Deanna noticed, was sitting between the Garcia twins. Rene was in the front row grinning at his uncle.

“Hello, kids,” Deanna said upon getting the nod from Carla. “I’d like to introduce -- what is it, Teresa?”

The eight-year-old girl dropped her frantically-waving hand. “Are you really going to marry the captain?”

She gaped for a few seconds, and frowned at Alexander. “It was Rene!” he defended shrilly, pointing at the back of Rene's head. “I didn’t say!”

"Did not!"

“I already knew,” Ingabo chirped. “Mom said they probably would.”

“Children,” Deanna scolded. “Settle down. This is Admiral Nechayev -- she’s a fleet admiral, our superior officer, and she’s here to see your school.”

Deanna was relieved that Nechayev took the initiative -- clearly this was the sort of thing she’d done before, and her demeanor with the children was much softer than her usual. Jean-Luc hung back and stood at attention near the door, while the admiral went from child to child to greet them. Deanna gave Carla a look -- the teacher shrugged sheepishly and played with the ends of her long blond hair, anxious. But the kids were all on good behavior, for once. Fortunate that all the children under six were in a different classroom, in day care instead of school. 

When she got to Jeremy, she asked about his parents, and was surprised by the answer she received. “My parents are both dead. I have foster parents.”

When Nechayev glanced at Deanna, she explained. “Many of the parents designate friends as guardians, in the event something happens to them. It’s often someone else serving with us -- that’s how Alexander came to be with me, after all. And Jeremy’s mother was lost on a mission led by Worf, and Worf took him under his wing, so he wanted to remain aboard with us.”

Nechayev smiled sympathetically at the young teen standing at attention in front of her. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said quietly. “You’re fifteen?”

“Sixteen, in a month. I’m working on my application to Starfleet Academy.”

“He intends to talk to the captain about a letter,” Deanna put in, smiling at the boy she’d worked with for months, following the death of his mother. He’d come to see her recently, to talk through what he wanted to do once he reached adulthood.

“Starfleet always needs fine young people such as yourself. I’m certain you will be an asset to us, Mr. Aster,” Nechayev exclaimed. 

Jeremy smiled at her politely. “Thank you, Admiral.” He sat down and folded his hands on his desk. 

Nechayev spoke briefly to Ingabo, who blinked up at her in amazement, her sparkling multi-faceted eyes mostly turquoise in her excitement. Her Bimarian father had given her startling features, including opalescent eyes and a long ridged nose that bisected her face. She was so nervous she hardly spoke, and asked no questions. 

Alexander was nothing like his friends. “It’s nice to meet you,” he said politely, calmly, hardly fidgeting. 

“Your father was an exemplary officer,” Nechayev said. “I was sad to hear of his death. You have everything you need, here on the _Enterprise_?”

“Yes, ma’am. Mom makes sure I get everything. She helped me when my mother died, she’s helping me with Father’s death, too. And I’m going to be in her wedding! She said! And we’re going -- “

“Alexander,” Deanna inserted before he could really get going.

He shrugged and contained himself, wriggling in his seat a little. “Sorry.”

“You have a great deal of enthusiasm. I appreciate that.” Nechayev moved on to the second Garcia twin. 

Deanna backed over to the wall and waited while the admiral finished her rounds. Carla inched over to her, and leaned close. “He’s been talking about being kidnapped?”

“That was yesterday afternoon,” Deanna whispered. “I suppose the captain didn’t mention it this morning.”

“No. Are you really as strong as he says you are?”

“He’s probably exaggerating, Carla. It was a small Ferengi.”

The admiral concluded her visit with a little speech about the Federation’s goals and values, and departed -- Deanna followed Jean-Luc, waving at the kids as she left. 

“I am beginning to understand a few things, Captain,” Nechayev said. “I seem to recall, when I took over the seventh fleet, that my predecessor informed me you had protested having a ship ‘full of families’ -- that attitude appears to have changed.”

“Adaptation is one of humanity’s strongest traits,” Deanna commented.

The admiral stopped and turned around. It was an odd thing for her to do in the middle of the corridor. But Deanna had the impression something about that statement had struck Nechayev in a way that led to some sort of epiphany.

“Go on.”

Deanna raised her head, a little taken aback at the request. “Well… it’s one of the reasons the Federation can exist. Before the charter was written, Starfleet’s first vessel faced incredible odds -- the Vulcans were advising humanity not to be too hasty, in taking to the stars. But without the Terrans -- without Captain Archer, there would have been more war, the Vulcans and Andorians would have continued to clash, and the current Vulcan civilization was influenced by Archer when he carried Surak’s katra to safety. Human influence brought stability between cultures that otherwise would never have found peaceful resolution. On the face of it, a treaty with the Klingons is the last thing anyone could expect, but one exists -- Klingons never had treaties before. They had conquests. I think it’s not a coincidence that most starship captains with long, successful careers and strings of diplomatic successes to their names are human.”

“I suppose I didn’t realize you were such a student of Federation history, Commander,” Nechayev said.

“I suppose I do have an interest,” Deanna admitted, her eyes sliding left to her captain. “Or perhaps there are avid historians in my immediate circle of friends.”

“And Data,” Jean-Luc added, trying to deflect attention.

“In any case, humanity’s contributions to the larger galactic community are more unique than you think. Betazed shows the influence of humanity’s general forward-looking stance -- just a dozen generations ago, we were all happy to meditate and commune, and gradually explore our local solar systems without the drive and passion of a human. Federation membership started a shift. Now it’s easy to find Betazoids with some percentage of human heritage, and it’s fairly common for us to be in Starfleet.”

“Your mother,” Nechayev exclaimed suddenly. “The Federation ambassador to Betazed?”

“Oh, yes, that’s my mother,” Deanna said, resigned to it. The admiral had obviously met her when Lwaxana was in full hyperactivity mode -- the amusement showed in her face.

“I met her at a Diplomatic Corps function. She’s very proud of you, with good reason, I see.” Nechayev had a sudden mood-shifting thought. “Computer, time.”

“The time is fifteen forty-four.”

At once, her head snapped around and she came to attention. “Thank you, Captain, for the tour. I regret that I have lost track of time -- I need to return to the starbase. Commander.”

She strode off at such a pace that it was clear she intended to leave them behind -- she vanished into the lift. Jean-Luc looked directly at Deanna, with a curious smile.

“You’re going to invite her to the wedding, aren’t you?” Deanna asked.

“Well, she’s your friend,” he said with that amused tone he adopted when he thought he could get away with teasing. “Should we?”

“Friend!”

“Deanna, honestly, the woman has conversations with you.”

“Is that unusual?”

He stared at her, and turned for the lift, shaking his head. “You could say that.”

“Is she really that bad?” Deanna asked, following him.

The lift doors closed behind them. “Bridge,” he said. “Her normal conversational pattern consists of making statements or giving orders, letting the underling respond, and making another statement. I’d expect she would allow more give and take with equals, or superiors, but you’re a few pay grades away and -- “ He gave her a wary stare.

“Stop it!”

“I’d better watch myself around you. You’re more ambitious than I expected.”

“I am not,” Deanna exclaimed. “I didn’t take the bridge test so I could get ahead. I simply wanted to be a better officer. To make you proud of me.”

The lift stopped, and Beverly walked in. She glanced back and forth, backed against the wall, and watched them as if she’d just found something interesting.

“Hello,” she said tentatively, when the lift moved on and no one spoke.

“They say weird is part of the job, in Starfleet,” Jean-Luc said. “I think it’s gone beyond that, for me. Surreal. Sublime, at times. And then there are days I just have no words, at all, and I think I’ve got to wake up any minute and this will all be some fantasy world.”

Beverly gave him a critical frown, and put a hand to his forehead. “He doesn’t feel feverish. I should have brought a tricorder.”

“We just took the fleet admiral to see our school,” Deanna said. “It was… strange.”

Jean-Luc pointed at her. “You see, no words.”

“How many children are left?” Beverly asked. “Should I take a team?”

“I think the captain is the biggest casualty. She liked the children.”

“For lunch?”

Jean-Luc sighed heavily, crossing his arms, and the lift stopped on the bridge. They followed him, and Deanna succumbed at long last to an impulse she’d had from time to time over the years, matching her steps to his -- Beverly giggled at it. Which of course gave away the game, and Mike chuckled from the center seat as they marched in time through the ready room door. Jean-Luc looked back from the tail of his eye, and sidestepped to scowl at them. But the door was shut behind them, and with the audience gone, his ire went, too.

“How often do you play games, when I’m not looking?”

Deanna feigned innocence, exchanging a slightly-offended look with Beverly. “Captain?”

“Counselor,” he said firmly.

She sighed. “I haven’t, but I’ve been tempted. Did you seriously believe I could be related to my mother and not be? I’m sorry, I won’t tease you on the bridge.”

It appeased him enough that he turned to get the tea. Beverly gave her a sympathetic glance and stepped forward first. “Captain, I’d like to take a day of leave, but I wanted to find out when the trial will be first.”

“Have we heard?” he replied from the replicator alcove.

“Not yet.” Deanna paused. “Computer, do I have any messages from the Judge Advocate General’s office?”

“One message.”

“Play message.” Sidestepping to the sofa, Deanna took a seat. Beverly dropped into one of the chairs. 

“Commander, please contact me,” Captain Ren’s voice said calmly. “We have something to discuss. I require your decision before I proceed.”

“Short, to the point,” Jean-Luc commented. He placed the tea service on the low table, and sat with Deanna on the couch. 

Deanna asked for an open channel, and Ren was quick to respond. “You wanted to speak to me, Captain?”

“Yes, thank you for your prompt response,” Ren said. “I have been approached by Mr. Riker’s counsel. He indicated that Riker will drop the slander charges, plead guilty, and accept sentencing, if you are willing to sign a confidentiality contract to never speak of what happened once all is said and done. Additionally, his counsel is applying to have all records of the matter sealed after his dismissal from Starfleet.”

Deanna gaped for a moment, her mind spinning. A suspicion began to eat at the bottom of her stomach. “What’s happened?”

Ren’s tone became sly. “In terms of legalities, nothing. I have been informed however that there is a fairly constant stream of hyperbole and speculation, in the public media.”

Deanna’s hands flew to her mouth -- she swayed slightly, eyes closed, trying not to shriek. Once calmer she dropped her hands and inhaled jaggedly. “Captain -- let me think about this. I’ll contact you in an hour.”

“As you wish.”

Jean-Luc’s hand went to her shoulder -- she could feel it there, but kept her eyes shut. “Deanna, what’s wrong?”

“All I could think about was keeping her from showing up and creating a hysterical drama-filled scene -- I didn’t even think about what else Mother would do! She was far too compliant -- I should have known! Computer, access the Federation newsfeed, play the headlines for today.”

The computer, in the usual cheery manner, began to recite. “Starfleet Captain Rapes Subordinates, Assaults Others. Starfleet Captain William T. Riker Faces Charges. Starfleet -- “

“Stop, damn it!”

Beverly and Jean-Luc sat with cups of tea in hand, watching her panting and trying to calm herself. She was too upset to sense the sympathy in their eyes. Jean-Luc had a cryptic smile.

“What?” Deanna demanded.

“I’m just thinking how much I’ve been underestimating various people, and how glad I am that your mother seems to like me.” 

Deanna reached for a cup, to pour herself some Earl Grey. “For now.”

“Guess you’ll have to keep Deanna happy,” Beverly commented.

Jean-Luc sipped tea, and chose to remain silent, rather than indulge his own amused impulse. Fortunately for him.

“What are you going to do about it?” Beverly asked, sipping tea. “Sounds like you have the upper hand, suddenly.”

Deanna spent a moment breathing slowly, and considered the situation, adding in the likelihood that Lwaxana’s considerable influence had already spread the word far and wide, and realizing there would be others who would take interest. There were two more Rikers -- neither Kyle nor Thomas would necessarily be interested in taking this personally, but they could be unpredictable. Particularly since they were both similar to Will, in some ways, and there might be some gain they could find in Will’s situation. 

“I’m going to think about it.”

“Good,” Jean-Luc said faintly. “Let me know if you want to talk about it.”

Deanna took a sip of hot Earl Grey, and leaned to reach for the sweetener. “Do you know anything about Kyle’s connections, with anyone?”

It made an impression on both of them. “Kyle?” Beverly asked.

“Will’s father,” Jean-Luc supplied. “And no, I know he’s well thought of in certain circles, but I’m not privy to much else about him.”

Deanna tried to ease the pit of voles, with another sip of tea.

“Deanna? Not sure I like that expression.”

She gazed at Jean-Luc and thought about the brief conversation with Kyle, years ago. “All I know about Kyle is that when he came aboard, he was colder and harder beneath his smile than Will has ever been. I know that he and Will didn’t speak to each other for fifteen years, prior to that visit. Not since he was fifteen. Kyle and his wife separated when he was very young, and Will rarely saw her -- what little I can gather indicates she’s had no contact with him either, over the years, certainly not since he’s been on starships -- the computer records indicate no subspace traffic to Earth other than to other officers, from Will. Apparently... psychopathy runs in the family. What else could explain complete indifference? Not to mention the prison sentence that his mother served, five years for aggravated assault.”

“I thought she died when he was two,” Beverly exclaimed. 

“So did I, until all of this led to more careful research.” Deanna gave them a grim smile. “Will may have other secrets yet.”

“Are you supposing Kyle might show up?” Jean-Luc asked.

“The story has already hit the media. So far, it’s just hysteria, whipped up by a call my Mother made, all conjecture. Until the court-martial is over there’s nothing from official channels to confirm anything. Will is accepting of a sentence, if it’s sealed -- if I stay silent, and it stays within Starfleet. I’m not aware of any enemies he might want this concealed from. I have to wonder if what he’s hiding from….”

She stared into her tea cup. Beside her, Jean-Luc was just as tense. He put his hand on her knee, and when she turned, met her gaze.

“Perhaps you should consider it from a different angle,” he said. “If Will is being this careful, perhaps sealing the matter into secrecy might be good for you as well.”

“You think that whatever Will is hiding from might be interested in her?” Beverly asked. “I can’t imagine why.”

“I’ll think about it,” Deanna said again. “And I know a few people I can ask about Kyle, as well.”

“Who?”

She smiled at Beverly, but without any real amusement at all. “Will is still in custody. And Kate Pulaski still calls me friend.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be without an internet connection for a week. So don't panic when the daily updates stop. It's just an unplugged retreat. See you on the 22nd.
> 
> If you don't want to go back to Netflix'd episodes for context, transcripts are available at http://www.chakoteya.net/NextGen/episodes.htm


	34. Tea and Insecurity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm back, from outer space.... 
> 
> And now I'm lining it up to take care of Will, Mr. Vigo, and move on to Generations -- an epic in the making, methinks.

Deanna went by to see Robert and Marie, after leaving the ready room. In transit she sent a message to Pulaski -- she didn’t expect to get the doctor in a live subspace conversation, and was quite correct. She asked instead for an appointment to have the conversation, and said nothing about why. 

She found her future in-laws sitting together with tea, at the dining table, and joined them. “You have a uniform, you are working?” Marie scolded. Today Marie wore slacks and a blouse instead of one of the loose, comfortable dresses she favored. It made her look thinner. 

“I was meeting with an admiral, related to the court-martial. That’s all. One doesn’t approach an admiral without armor. How are you today? Yesterday was stressful, and I didn’t have much opportunity to talk about it with you due to the dinner preparation.”

Marie smiled fondly at her, not at all stressed. “It all happened so quickly. Thank you, so much, for intervening -- I don’t think we would have known what to do.”

Deanna realized they didn’t have enough context to be really aware of how close they had come to disaster. Robert was as calm as Marie. And why would they know, having lived on Earth all their lives, where such things never happened in their little town? It was easy to decide to let it go, and move on to more pleasant things. 

“Last night, you seemed to enjoy meeting our senior staff. I hope that you did?”

“I was telling Marie, today, how impressed I am -- you have surrounded yourselves with good people. My brother is lucky,” Robert said, with a tinge of the jealousy Jean-Luc had mentioned in counseling. 

Deanna dropped her gaze, smiling to herself. She sensed when he noticed, and gauged his response. “Your brother is careful. He has had a long career, was in command of the _Stargazer_ , became a good judge of character -- a captain chooses his officers, and the people Jean-Luc chooses have minds of their own, principles that he respects, because he doesn’t want blind trust. There are examples of the problems that blind faith in a commanding officer can cause -- certain personality traits tend to be common in those seeking command. Confidence can cross a line into overconfidence, arrogance. Jean-Luc wants to be corrected when he makes mistakes.”

That caught Robert off guard. “You are telling me that he admits mistakes.”

“People die sometimes, when commanding officers make mistakes,” she said quietly, avoiding another discussion of confidential material. “He doesn’t like having blood on his hands.”

“I wondered,” Marie began, but stopped herself. When Deanna kept looking at her expectantly, she continued. “You seem to go along with whatever he wants -- I suppose that isn’t always… you are amused.”

“What is your default?”

Marie glanced at Robert. “My default?”

“No one is the same in every situation. My default while aboard the ship is different,” Deanna explained.

“You want me to think you have a different side of you,” Robert exclaimed. “You say my brother is not arrogant, and you are not sweet and shy and quiet.”

“I say that I have not seen you and Marie at a real party, and so I do not know how you dance, whether you like a waltz or a strip tease.”

Robert laughed -- he reminded her so much of Jean-Luc, when something caught him off guard and amused him greatly. “You know, she’s right.”

“Jean-Luc would waltz,” Marie said.

Deanna propped her elbow on the table, thinking about attempts made over the years. “He doesn’t dance at all. You have to have an admiral’s bars to get him to waltz.”

“Robert hasn’t taken me dancing in years. We used to go to Paris more often. To the clubs, where we would drink and dance. It’s been awhile -- I’ve been meaning to talk you into taking me again,” Marie said, touching her husband’s hand. 

“You also haven’t seen Jean-Luc relax. He rarely does, completely. But we rarely can. Too many years of being on a ship, where we can be at a red alert five minutes from now.”

Marie blinked at her with a growing sadness. “I can see that anything can happen, out here.”

Robert tapped his fingers on the table restlessly. “I think I would like to understand this difference you see. Who you really are.”

Deanna thought about being with Jean-Luc, on leave, and about swimming in the ocean, dancing, being free of the counselor and the ship -- and smiled at Robert. His eyebrows started to climb. 

“I can arrange it, if you aren’t afraid of the uninhibited.”

“I’m supposing that Jean-Luc hasn’t said much to you about France,” Robert said, guffawing. “My dear, there’s very little you could do to surprise me.”

She smirked, now. “You’ve never been to Betazed. I think that there are many things you are not yet aware of.”

“Then we get your babysitters and go out,” Robert announced.

“To the holodeck. I’ll have Wes and his mother babysit for us.”

“I didn’t bring anything to wear, for a club,” Marie said. “And there’s nothing to make me feel old like a short hemline.”

Deanna hummed, appraising the somewhat-older woman. “I think we can come up with something. Come over in about an hour, and we’ll have a chat with the replicator.”

“What about me?” Robert exclaimed. He was teasing, clearly.

“Men like you know what to do with themselves,” Deanna said, grinning and kicking him lightly under the table. “I’m going to arrange things and talk Jean-Luc into it.”

“And if he doesn’t go, you come anyway,” Robert said, thumping his chest with both hands and spreading his arms. “There is enough of me for both of you!”

Deanna dropped a kiss on his cheek and left them chuckling, to head for her quarters. She had Beverly on board with a comm call, and as she swept into the captain’s suite she asked the computer for messages. Another call to Captain Ren, requesting more time -- Kate Pulaski wanted to talk to her first thing in the morning, Starfleet time, and Deanna wanted to at least make a token attempt to understand more before making the decision. 

She surveyed the clothing already in the closet and decided to ask the replicator for something else -- the dress from the leave on Lavonia, sleeveless instead of strapless, with the uneven sloping hemline, only in a shimmering dove gray. She asked the computer for any results to a search for more information on Will Riker’s extracurricular activities, and was frustrated to find nothing more than what she already knew. 

She wondered what Kyle would tell her if she contacted him. It would be preferable to interview him in person, however, as she knew he would be disinterested in truly helping her. 

She was wearing the dress, and brushing all her hair out into a long fall of curls, careful not to pull out the extensions she’d had to use, when Marie arrived. She forced a long metal clip to close around the collected hair against the back of her head and came out of the bedroom, surprising the other woman.

“What does it mean?” Marie pointed at the tattoo on Deanna’s exposed left thigh. 

“Freedom.” 

“I wish I could wear a dress like that. I did, once.”

Deanna smiled, and started with sizing, bringing up styles on the monitor on the desk, and together they sorted through and filtered out unwanted features, colors, and styles, and slowly it came down to a dozen styles in red. And the replicator spat out the result, which after Marie put it on, flattered her figure well enough.

She let Deanna work on her hair, grinning all the while. “It feels like when I was a girl,” she said, picking up jewelry piece by piece. “When my older sister and I would do each other’s hair, and go out. Such wonderful times.”

“How many siblings do you have?”

“Just Anna, she’s two years older. Do you have any sisters?”

“My older sister drowned when I was a baby. My older half brother is twenty-two years older than I, we never see each other.”

They chatted about the follies of youth, briefly, and Deanna put one of her clips in Marie’s hair to pull back the blond curls, leaving only a few wisps of hair around her face. 

“You need matching lipstick,” Deanna said, rummaging in the top drawer. 

“I think you are perfect for him,” Marie said suddenly. 

Deanna hesitated, looking down at the woman seated at her dressing table. “I am?”

“He needed someone to accept him.”

Deanna gave her the lipstick tube she’d found, and picked up the burgundy she intended to wear herself. “What a strange thing to say,” she said at last.

“Well, it’s true, isn’t it? You accept him as he is.” Marie put on lipstick slowly, looking at herself in the mirror. “I thought, when he came home, that he seemed lost. Like he had no one anywhere, who would love him.”

Deanna thought about the day he’d left the _Enterprise_ \-- she’d kissed him on the cheek, as he stood there with his bag over his shoulder. Later she’d sat with herself in meditation and realized the sadness she felt wasn’t just his, but hers, that she’d felt him pulling away, from his ship and what it represented. She had been so happy to see him the following week when he returned. 

“My dear,” Marie exclaimed in dismay, touching her arm. “I didn’t mean to make you so sad.”

“It’s nothing -- you sent me back in sad memories, that’s all,” Deanna said with a smile. She stood back as she sensed him -- he was approaching, and in a fairly good mood. “So you can make it up to me by helping me make some happy ones.”

Marie stood up, twirled, laughed, and hugged Deanna briefly. “Now that you showed me how, I will go see about shoes from the replicator.” As she approached the bedroom door, it opened. She hesitated only a second or two, smiling, touching Jean-Luc’s shoulder as she breezed by on her way to the replicator.

Deanna sat down at the mirror and started to add shimmering eye makeup. “Marie wants to go dancing,” she said fondly. “I arranged for Wes and Beverly to take care of the kids. Do you want to come with us, or would you like to recover from everyone for a while? It’s been awhile, since you had time to yourself. I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to sit and be quiet for a while. I’m thinking that tomorrow will be that, for me, after I’ve taken care of a few things in the morning.”

He slowly recovered from being startled, by his sister-in-law in what Beverly usually called ‘battle dress’ -- clubbing wasn’t the doctor’s thing, she’d said often, all the aggressive sexuality in play was a turnoff for her. Jean-Luc came slowly forward, and she stood up, almost eye to eye with the heeled sandals on. He was in one of those moods, that previously had resulted in his spending hours alone, ruminating and listening to music, reading, whatever else Captain Picard did in solitude.

“I’m tempted to keep you here. You could dance for me again.”

“I want to dance for you. I have the costume from the mission, such as it was, underneath the dress,” she said softly. “I don’t think they’ll stay for hours… dinner, and a few dances, perhaps.”

He was a little tired, but not so much that he wasn’t interested at all. He warred within himself, between time with his brother and taking a break -- it hadn’t been difficult being with his relatives, other than the weight of the past conflicts with Robert, but he had also recently moved from solitary to living with her and the energetic child they were sharing responsibility for, a difficult transition at best. She was concerned that he was feeling crowded.

And then he surprised her again. “I’m starting to -- I don’t know what to call it -- hear you, sometimes. Especially if I’m thinking about you. A moment ago it felt like -- sadness.”

“Oh, no,” she sighed. “Marie said something about the time you went home, years ago. That’s all. It reminded me of seeing you off, and thinking you might not return. It made me sad to think about it.”

He stared wide-eyed at her. “You felt that way then?”

“I’ve been fond of you for a long time, you know. I could always tell when you weren’t as hard as you pretended to be. But I’ve kept your secret so far.” At least as well as he had, anyway.

“I’ll change out of this,” he said, feeling drawn to her but turning to head for the closet instead. 

She chose earrings while she waited, a shining pair of malachite studs, and waited quietly, contemplating a necklace.

“Are you happy with me?”

At his question, Deanna looked up from the chains in her hand to find him in one of his loose, comfortable shirts and some pants that reminded her of when he went riding. She smiled, her brow wrinkling briefly. “Of course -- you’re just as you always are, during the day, and I know it felt different when you scolded me, but you should have. I shouldn’t be disrespectful on the bridge.”

He was still being introspective, and a little regretful, she thought. She spun the short chair and rose, settling into herself, relaxing, letting herself orient on him more than usual during the day, and let her lips brush his cheek, in about the same spot she’d kissed him before he’d gone home to France.

“It’s going to be difficult, for the next months,” he murmured, and she knew then that the mood was about whatever the admiral had told him -- probably things on the Demilitarized Zone, and now the wormhole into the Gamma Quadrant was bringing ships and aliens into the Alpha Quadrant. 

“We are going out with your brother and his wife, to continue the process of getting to know them better. The Cardassians and all the rest will wait their turn.”

She had his attention a little more firmly than before. He sighed, nodding, and his hand found her right arm as he leaned to kiss her briefly. 

They returned to the living room, to find Marie had been joined by Robert, and Deanna wondered if this must be some genetic quirk, the two Picards with the same basic clothing choices. She smiled serenely and followed them out the door, to create themselves a club in a holodeck and spend some time pretending not to be aboard a starship, facing multiple challenges at once.

Robert stared at her in the lift, caught himself, turned to smile at his wife and said, “This was a good idea.”

“We should remember we aren’t just an old married couple more often,” she replied, quite happy. 

“Variety,” Robert said, nudging Jean-Luc’s shoulder.

“Is the spice of life,” Jean-Luc responded as if it were a pass code. “Uncle Severin.”

“Who was the absolute opposite, as severe as I was chaste,” Robert said with a laugh. 

The lift opened. Deanna was glad the corridor outside holodeck two was empty -- she’d been somewhat tense about the idea of wearing this dress on the ship, but usually, she rationalized, corridors near the captain’s quarters and the holodecks were relatively untravelled. As they approached it, however, the holodeck doors opened.

Reg Barclay stepped out, wearing one of the costumes that people would often wear -- she didn’t register what it was, exactly, as he froze in panic at the sight of them, his mouth round and his eyes wide open.

Deanna tried. She had to. “Hello, Reg. If you’re finished?” she said lazily as if they’d just happened upon each other as usual. She gestured at the holodeck. Reg was, it registered at last, dressed up as a character from the Three Musketeers.

Reg recovered enough to speak at last. “Counselor -- De -- I -- you -- hi,” he stammered. “Hi. I mean -- of course you want -- hi.”

“Reg, go home.”

“I wanted to -- ask, if you -- an appointment.” Waves of anxiety rose from the man. It was as though she’d not done any counseling with him at all. 

“You stopped taking the medication again, haven’t you? Go to sickbay and start it again. I won’t make another appointment until you do. It’s an exercise in futility.” The way he was staring at her was bad, so bad, and it pushed her to the decision she’d wavered on for a while. “And I think that appointment needs to be with Mike.”

Reg started to feel the hurt -- it was inevitable. It shook him out of the state of stasis, however. “Okay.” 

She watched him hurry the other direction, and turned to go inside the holodeck. She spent some time at the arch, finding something, and letting the other three wait behind her. The program selected, privacy locks turned on, she turned around and sighed.

“Sorry,” she said, to Jean-Luc.

“I have no idea why you’re apologizing to me. I almost feel like apologizing to you, for… I suppose for expecting you to deal with him, and others like him.”

“There’s no one like Reg,” she exclaimed with a rueful grin. 

“Where are you taking us today?” Marie asked, beaming, clinging to Robert’s arm. She had been amused by Reg, but clearly understood it wasn’t for discussion.

“Remember that Robert asked for it. If you want to switch to somewhere on Earth, we can do that in a heartbeat.” Deanna approached Jean-Luc across the network of yellow gridlines. “That goes for you, too. Computer, run program.”

The bar materialized first -- an open-air rooftop bar, on a round building, with lush plants everywhere on the perimeter. The bartender, a nude Betazoid with a fantastic dark tan and straight black hair down to her knees, loosely braided with a green ribbon wrapped in long curves around its length, waited at the counter on the far left. Then the patrons sprang into being -- about a dozen Betazoids as undressed as the bartender, with smiles and hair in shades ranging from platinum blond to black, lounged around. Some seated at tables and others on the long double lounge chairs. There were triple-wide chairs as well; a threesome occupied one of them, engaged in leisurely fondling. Overhead the two moons were low in the sky, and Deanna knew it would be dark soon. 

“Betazed,” Jean-Luc said. 

“You’ve been there, but not in a long time. And not Janara.” Deanna chose a table, and settled in the reclining chair. The tables for dining were lower than ones typically used on Earth. Terrans liked to sit upright to eat, but Betazoids were less utensil-oriented. 

“What a beautiful waterfall -- this is lovely,” Marie exclaimed, gazing off between some potted palms at Janaran Falls. The river was some miles distant.

“We’re overdressed,” Robert commented, watching a woman walk by, her undulating stride intended to get the attention of another woman she was approaching. 

“This is a famous bar near Janaran Falls. People come from all over the sector to see the falls. Not very many of them know about the restaurant.”

“What’s the name of it?” Marie seated herself across from Deanna, and Jean-Luc sidled around to slide a chair a little closer to Deanna before sitting. Robert joined his wife and looked up at a nude waiter arriving -- he did a slight double-take at the length and somewhat different look of the man’s prominent penis.

“Restaurants on Betazed don’t have names unless tourists frequent them. This one is rarely patronized by tourists.” Deanna glanced up as the waiter gestured, and ordered in Betazoid. He nodded and went away again. “I would have ordered telepathically, but he’s a hologram,” she explained. “They don’t make holograms yet that have that feature. I hope you like what I ordered, I tried to choose milder dishes.”

“I thought we were going dancing.” Robert watched platters of food carried over and placed on the table with the efficiency of a holodeck, brought by a couple of young women who put drinks in front of each of them as well. “And I’d never heard that Betazed was so lax on the dress code.”

Deanna smiled at that. “I wouldn’t take you dancing on Betazed. That would be more culture shock than I would expect you to tolerate. As for clothing, most of us wear it -- but this is an occasion. The spring meteor shower is usually celebrated this way.”

“This, what is it called?”

“Those are oskoid,” Deanna explained, nodded at the leaf-wrapped appetizer Robert held up. She explained all the items and what was in them, and then started to answer questions about Betazoids in general as Marie became braver about voicing her curiosity. It was interesting, the things that Jean-Luc found surprising. He hadn’t known about some of the things she ordered, and she made a point of telling Marie which were her favorites. He listened with interest to a general description of Betazoid holidays, as Deanna chatted with his sister-in-law about them.

As they ate and drank she sensed the gradual relaxation, as the drinks took hold and conversation ran to the innocuous. Overhead, a meteor shower started, an annual show that lit up the deck with transient flashes of light brighter even than the twin moons. More holographic patrons arrived all the time, until the rooftop was packed with nude Betazoids. It was amusing to watch the Picards doing their best to ignore the many acres of skin, illuminated by the gentle glow of the moons.

Deanna smiled, as Jean-Luc finally asked after the vineyard. It was as though he’d had an agreed moratorium on the subject -- he hadn’t brought it up, nor had Robert. Robert’s moment of surprise became pleasure, as he started to talk about his treasured vines and the wines coming out of the casks these days. 

He had reached full absorption in the topic when a sudden moist, fleshy sound of bodies doing what they did so well disrupted his train of thought -- his head jerked to the right as he glanced over his shoulder, toward the laughing woman on the lap of the man seated in a chair facing the other direction, sitting directly behind them. She was happily giving the man the ride of her life, and he sprawled in the chair with his head almost on Robert’s shoulder.

“Computer, remove the couple ten feet to my right,” Deanna said calmly. The chair and the couple vanished.

“Now, if it were so easy everywhere, Papa would have had fewer fights with the Travers,” Robert exclaimed, exchanging a look with his brother. The two of them chuckled together at the idea.

“This is an accurate program?” Marie said faintly, watching a young male pair go by, one of them following the other with a remarkably long erect penis. 

“Mostly. I removed the segment featuring the orgy.” Deanna decided not to mention this was something her mother had used, last time she was aboard. 

“I thought we were going dancing?” Robert asked again, his eyes following a slender woman swaying by, giving him a suggestive look. Now that he had been distracted he couldn’t seem to refocus.

Deanna glanced at Jean-Luc, whose upswing of anxiety was perhaps predictable. “Computer, run second program.”

The change of scenery was a little disorienting, but the Picards all smiled at the result, an open air restaurant with a dance floor in the corner and the night sky overhead, with Earth’s familiar moon two-thirds full hovering over them. It was all basic black, shining gold grace notes, relatively well lit by standing lanterns. They were seated at a table in a raised part of the restaurant, looking down into the larger lower level; if one paid attention, it might have been obvious from the even temperature and lack of a breeze that the place was under a force field dome to keep out bugs, weather and birds. 

“This is the bar down the hill from Starfleet Command,” Jean-Luc said. “A newer version of it than I remember.”

“Based on my memory of it,” Deanna said. “I think they renovated a few years before I reached the Academy. It will serve. Computer, load the music list Troi fifty-four, and add all the patrons.”

In seconds, they were in an active, noisy club full of a blend of tourists, locals and cadets from the Academy -- there was a jumpy, electronic song full of thrumming bass notes driving the people on the dance floor into a frenzy, and the wait staff were practically dancing to avoid collisions with people walking to and from tables and the dance floor. 

“We’ll wait for something slower,” Marie said -- she might have spoken, but it was impossible to hear over the noise of the crowd and the music, but Deanna could read lips fairly well. She nodded and shot Jean-Luc a smile, and rose as the waiter arrived.

She stepped around him to walk toward the stairs to the lower level. She relaxed into the lingering buzz of the drinks she’d consumed, lengthening her stride, loosening herself in anticipation -- as she approached the dance floor she swung around, danced her way into the crowd, and as she knew they would, the holograms adjusted themselves to accommodate her without collisions or embarrassing situations. The song changed after a few minutes of thrashing and arm-swinging, shifting to slow and blues-y, and the floor opened up as people who wanted to gyrate left and the slower dancers came out. Deanna felt her way into the music, swaying her hips, and found herself dancing with a young, good-looking holographic man who appeared to be made of sex. He swayed and swung round her, not touching her but inviting her to, giving his dark wavy hair a saucy flip back from his face and smiling at her as if she wore his favorite icing and he wanted a taste. 

And then Marie swung into her peripheral vision, dancing with Robert, flashing her a smile. Deanna laughed and kept dancing, and as she turned around and moved with her ‘partner’ she glanced up at their table. Jean-Luc had risen to his feet, and watched from above, leaning on the railing. He looked frustrated. She decided she’d rather focus on dancing and tried not to sense what was going on with him.

The next two songs were love songs, with an easy beat to dance to, and Deanna switched partners each time, catching glimpses of Robert and Marie from time to time. Then came a plaintive song about missing the man she loved, the singer putting her melodic alto to the task of expressing all the pathos of the story of love gone wrong, heart broken, tears shed. Deanna switched partners, to a young blonde who pulled her into a lazy waltz, smiling at her confidently. She found herself pulled away from him a few seconds later and almost stumbled into Jean-Luc’s arms.

“Hello,” she murmured, smiling back at him. “I thought you don’t dance.”

“I don’t. But I found something I enjoy less.”

She took his hand and led him into the waltz. “Watching me dance with holographic characters?”

He moved stiffly with her, uncomfortable with it. As they turned slowly with each step she ignored everything, even the music, and let her focus go to him. She let herself flow toward him, emotionally, and felt him respond to it. By the end of the song they moved together in a more relaxed manner, more or less in time with the music. 

“Not bad,” Robert commented. He and Marie had been dancing nearby, coming to a stop as the music faded. It ruined it -- Jean-Luc stood back from her, self-conscious once again. 

“Come on, Robert,” Marie exclaimed. “Let’s go. My feet are already tired and I am too. It’s been so lovely, but we should get Rene and get him to bed -- he’s already up past his bedtime.”

Deanna knew Marie was lying about being tired, but that was likely her being encouraging of the attempt to get Jean-Luc to loosen up, by leaving them alone so he would be less self conscious. Robert went with his wife, with an apologetic look at his brother and a peck on Deanna’s cheek, and after they were gone and the arch vanished again into the background, Deanna ordered the program to freeze.

Jean-Luc watched her approach -- he reciprocated when she put her arms around him, and they stood cheek to cheek for a few minutes. 

“You don’t need to dance with me,” she said softly. “Let’s go home.”

He wouldn’t move, just stood there with his frustration and longing and love for her clashing quietly while his arms got tighter around her.

“Jean-Luc, I love you. I don’t want a dance partner. Come home, and I’ll dance for you there.”

Finally, he let go, and went with her. She terminated the program and walked with him down the corridor. When the lift stopped on their deck she glanced at him as they left it. “I’ll get Alexander. Unless….”

“I’m sorry,” he said at last, coming to a halt in the empty corridor. “Of course. We should get Alexander. I’m being ridiculous.” But he was still struggling with a sense of failure.

“I know that you have never felt comfortable dancing, and it doesn’t matter to me why, Jean-Luc. If this is going to be an issue I will stop dancing,” she said, looking him in the eye, hands clasped in front of her. 

“But you enjoy it,” he exclaimed. “You’re good at it. I don’t want you to just give up something because -- “ He stared at her for a moment, and took a deep breath, let out a long sigh. “I’m being ridiculous.”

“It’s all right. I won’t tell.” She gave him her fondest, slyest smile.

“So Alexander is -- “

“At Beverly’s, yes.”

Jean-Luc was fine as they retrieved their foster child, and Alexander was over the moon, giddy, happy -- Wes had played chess with him and lost, after Rene had gone. He gave Deanna a good-night kiss and went off to his room at a run, without hesitation. Jean-Luc turned to her and held out a hand, which she took. 

“Do we need anything else, for this dance of yours?” he asked, leading her into the bedroom.

“You could help me out of this dress.” She dropped one earring after the other in the dish on the dressing table, and shook out her hair, setting aside the clip. She watched him hang the jacket, pull off the shirt, and went to him slowly, kicking off one shoe, then the other. 

He watched her approach with a smile. But she stopped short of arm’s reach, and studied him thoughtfully. His gaze dropped to the floor.

“Why are you struggling with this? There was no doubt before. This isn’t really about dancing, is it?”

“Do you remember a conversation we had, shortly after you came aboard, about my career?”

Deanna smiled at the memory. “You talked about feeling as though you had already accomplished what you expected to, in life. That being given the _Enterprise_ was like having another chance.”

“No, not that one exactly. The one about younger officers.”

“Being uncomfortable with your role as a mentor? Not wanting to teach?”

Jean-Luc crossed his arms and kept staring at the floor. 

“Are you somehow imagining that you are being a bad example for all the young minds who couldn’t care less who you have sitting in your lap?”

By the time he looked at her again, she’d pulled the dress off over her head, and then his sheepish expression was replaced by a startled stare. 

“Do you like it?”

“That’s the costume you wore, for weeks, on that mission,” he exclaimed. 

Deanna tugged at the barely-adequate brassiere self-consciously. “I didn’t put all the metal bits or the spinning tassels on, but essentially. I had a number that required stripping, so sometimes there was a little more to it than that.”

“So essentially you wore nothing? So it wasn’t exaggeration when Mike said -- Deanna, you spent weeks wearing -- nothing.”

“I had a robe to wear when I wasn’t performing. But the character wasn’t supposed to care.” Deanna sighed at him. “This is the opposite of the desired reaction, you know.”

Now he had his hand to his forehead as if a headache had stricken him. Not what she wanted, either. The bare-chested Picard should be removing his pants, not wallowing in one of these moods. 

“If I were on Betazed, in my house, I probably wouldn’t even wear this,” she said, propping her hands on her hips.

“What -- house?”

“I have one. It’s being rented by a cousin, at the moment. When I leave Starfleet I’ll ask him to be gone, by the time I’m done with the twelve week vacation I’ll take first. Get myself some new furniture and move in. That’s the backup plan, anyway, if you can’t manage to shake off whatever this is -- you told me you didn’t have any doubts about us.”

“It isn’t,” he blurted. “It isn’t about us. I don’t -- it’s not what -- “

“So you’re tying yourself in knots because you don’t think you can have me and Starfleet too, in spite of the tacit approval from your fleet admiral.” Deanna pulled the thong over her hips and let it drop to the floor. 

Jean-Luc stared a while longer, everything turning over in his mind several times while she waited. She raised her hand to the bra, slowly slipped a thumb through the front, gave it a twist -- it parted with a quiet ‘pop’ of the torn fabric and she let it fall away. 

“At least give me a hint of how you ended up here?” She took a step toward him and noted the way his eyes followed her hips. “Jean-Luc, what’s wrong? Please tell me.”

He took a moment more -- the tide was finally turning, he started to shake his head, shake it off, and he sighed and rolled his eyes at her. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m sorry, it’s pointless of me to worry, and absolutely pointless to compare, when it’s obvious that nothing about our lives is the same as it would be, if we weren’t in Starfleet. I watched them enjoying themselves, and it struck me that I’ve never felt so… uninhibited as Robert was, dancing with her. I started to think about you as you were on Lavonia, and….”

Deanna took another step, and leaned a little until her nipples brushed his wiry chest hair. “You don’t feel like you’re a good match for me?”

Her proximity put him on edge. “I didn’t say that.”

“You think I’m not a good match for you?”

“You’re going to tell me that you chose me, and that I need to let this go, because I’m just being anxious for no reason. That you’re not going to lose interest in me because I’m a stodgy old man who can’t dance and won’t stop brooding about all the ways I’m going to disappoint you.”

Deanna felt that cold fear like a spear to the chest, and blinked tears away. She glanced down at the toes of his boots, which were several inches from her stubby toes with their lacquered red toenails. His hands closed on her shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I know better. I know we’re already together, and I don’t want that to change. Help me?”

Deanna raised her head to look into his eyes, and got caught there. Sighing, she smiled through a few tears. “What would you like me to do? I’ve already made the choice. I have your mother’s ring. I didn’t object when you moved my foster son and me in here, and I’m willing to be here while you work through another of your moods that you never let me help you with before. I suppose I could make you a cup of tea?”

A smile trembled on his lips, and he stepped in to hold her tightly. 

“It’s a good thing you really like tea,” she murmured.

“It’s a good thing you know when to not take me seriously.”

She put her arms around his waist and kissed his cheek. “I always take you seriously, unless you don’t want me to.”

Jean-Luc kissed her cheek, nibbled her ear, held her against his chest, and she found herself swaying with him, gently, in ever-increasing leans until they took a step together, and another. She started to giggle as she realized they were slow dancing, and closed her eyes, enjoying the happiness.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured again.

“You can doubt yourself if you like. I never will.”

The slow dance stopped, and he stood back enough to look her in the eyes again. “I did mention I’m not good at this?”

Deanna nodded slowly, smiling. “You’re doing fine, Jean-Luc. As long as you talk to me.”

“I can take dancing lessons,” he said suddenly.

Deanna smirked. Marie was right about the Picard boys, certainly. He had been feeling more than thinking about it. “Not right now, I hope.”

“Oh, now -- you were going to dance for me. But I’m not sure I’ll be able to let go.”

“I can dance in a minute. Let me help you with these pants.”

But he tilted his head, leaned down, and kissed her, slowing down her hands, and while he gave her slow, sweet kisses they started to sway again, turning in circles together, holding each other. Deanna let him guide her to the bed after a time, and they didn’t talk again for a while.

She woke briefly, without opening her eyes -- she lay on her side facing him, curled up and with her knee resting on his hip and her cheek to his shoulder. She could feel his hand caressing her hair, and his emotions had settled into a warm, constant glow that made her feel safe and happy.

“Stop comparing yourself to your brother,” she murmured.

His body tensed briefly. His hand came to rest on her head. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, the smile audible in his soft voice.

Deanna settled closer against him, sliding her hand until her arm laid against his chest at a comfortable angle and her fingers spread along his ribs. Yawning, she drifted off again.


	35. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fails

It was wonderful, to have what seemed a normal morning routine. Deanna enjoyed the mundane tasks of having breakfast and seeing to the needs of a child, the discussion of the day’s schedule, the little details of life -- she was particularly satisfied by Alexander’s mood. Between her weekly sessions helping him review how to cope with anxiety and the greatly-diminished bad dreams, and the regular schedule of many people who gave him ongoing positive attention, he was doing better all the time. This morning he was pleasant and polite. He departed for school with his latest project in hand, happily walking with his stepfather.

She emerged from the bedroom, where she’d put in earrings and put the combs in her hair that she usually wore with the uniform, to find that Jean-Luc had returned from dropping off Alexander at school. He gave her a sheepish little smile that still gave her pause. It wasn’t like the captain to look at her that way.

“I wanted to be certain that we are on track.”

“Of course,” she exclaimed, going to him and brushing her fingers down his sleeve. “I’m actually glad about last night… I think it was something that needed to be dealt with. I hope it wasn’t too anxiety-provoking.”

But it had been, which was why he had come back -- he was hesitant in doing it, as if he understood it meant it wasn’t resolved, but they had long ago come to the understanding that not acknowledging a problem only led to a bigger problem. He sighed as he caught her hand in his. 

“I haven’t done this before, either, you know,” she said. “Never actually lived with someone this way.”

Slow realization went through him. “I suppose not.”

“I’m not afraid. I know you. Do you trust me, Jean-Luc?”

His hand went to her cheek briefly. “Yes.”

“I need to make a call -- I’ll come tell you how things go, when I’m done. I intend to discuss things further with Captain Ren.”

“I’ll see you at lunch, then?” His smile solidified and he turned to go, feeling better about doing so.

Deanna waited until he was gone and the door shut in his wake to head for the desk. “Computer, open a subspace channel to Dr. Katherine Pulaski, at Starfleet Medical.” She took a seat as the monitor came to life. In a few moments she was treated to the sight of Kate with a tall cup of coffee, settling into a chair and swearing under her breath.

“Hi, Kate,” Deanna said.

“Sorry, it’s been one of those mornings,” Kate said as if it hadn’t been almost a year. “How are you, Deanna?”

“I’m going through a lot right now. I can tell you all about it, or I can give you a summary and then you might have time left in the day to work.”

Kate laughed at it, propping her chin in her hand and looking out at Deanna as if they were in Ten Forward sitting across a table. “Let me have it. I can take it.”

“I’m pressing charges against Will Riker. There are a lot of other women filing complaints against him. He’s been relieved of duty, and he’s counter-sued for slander.”

The cheerful smile vanished, and the hand dropped. Kate stared at her with a composed serious look. “Charges,” she echoed.

“Attempted rape.”

Kate sat back in the chair and stared at the desk in front of her for a moment. An odd expression flitted across her face.

“Kate?”

“I had wondered,” she said, raising her eyes again to Deanna’s. 

“I wanted to ask you about something. He’s willing to plead guilty and do the time, if I sign a gag order, allow the records to be sealed. It was a curious enough offer -- the case is almost open and shut, all we would be spared would be however many days it would take for the court-martial to run its course. I think he might be afraid of something. What do you think?”

Kate tilted her head slightly. “I’m wondering why you want my thoughts on the matter.”

“Because you aren’t here, in the middle of this. You’re impartial.”

“I can imagine that emotions are running higher than usual -- what does your captain think of all of it? I’m guessing it was quite the blow to the ego, finding out his first officer isn’t quite what he thought.”

Deanna was sure her face gave away more than she wanted, at that point, especially since Kate’s expression shifted to surprise and interest. “He’s quite angry. It’s a betrayal -- there were more than a hundred women aboard the _Enterprise_ who were victims of harassment under his watch. He’s appalled. He’s been apologizing personally to as many of them as he can.”

“Well, that’s just what I would expect of him. Always first in line to take the beatings. Deanna?”

Deanna looked up again, after dropping her gaze. “I feel like it’s my fault, as well. I think if I had not given the appearance of being such good friends with Will, I might have been hearing from at least a few of these women in counseling. I could have stopped him sooner.”

Kate sighed audibly. “Deanna. You know better.”

“You don’t seem surprised by the crime as most were.”

“Maybe I’m less surprised because I’m more jaded than most. I tend to think most people are more idealistic than is good for anyone, any more. It makes us easy prey, to be so caught up in Federation ideals that we forget not everyone buys into them with the same fervor.”

Deanna frowned a little. “I thought you might be basing it more on Will’s character, or that you might know something I don’t.”

Kate shrugged. “I’m not shocked. He’s not unlike his father, after all. You said once, after Kyle left, that you thought they were very much alike, based on what you sensed.”

“Are you saying that Kyle is capable of assaulting women?”

Kate had a way of not revealing much on her face while she thought about that. “I think I told you that I was involved with him, once upon a time, a long time ago. Did I tell you why that didn’t go anywhere?”

“No. You didn’t say much at all. I think I could guess that it had something to do with Kyle being stubborn and controlling.”

Kate’s slight smile was begrudgingly amused. “He’s a charming man, when he wants to be. I don’t know what would have happened if I had tried to stick around any longer than I did. Will didn’t strike me as being so rigid as his father, but he also didn’t seem to be as intelligent.”

“The story has been in the news. I have to wonder what Kyle will do, if he sees.”

Lips pursed, Kate settled forward in the chair, suspicion in the furrows on her brow. “Deanna… what else is going on with you? You didn’t call me to just chat about this.”

“I think he’s up to something. I think there’s something behind this request -- he denied it, until the story broke, and now he’s willing to plead guilty. I can’t think of what it could be -- he already knows he is losing his commission. Why would he care so much about being secretive?”

“And you think it has something to do with Kyle?” Kate crossed her arms -- it wasn’t something she usually did.

“I think it has something to do with something other than Starfleet, and one of the few things that occurred to me was that it might be related to his father. He told me very little about his father. What he has said made it clear he disliked him, felt as though he always had to compete with him. I’m not sure what else it could be. There’s been no subspace communications with anyone outside Starfleet channels.”

“Interesting, that you’re the one investigating this, and not the actual investigative powers that be,” Kate said, her smile acquiring a wry twist of the mouth.

“I don’t like being taken advantage of, Kate. I don’t like that he took advantage of people I work with, and I don’t like that he’s been doing it since before he came aboard and no one stopped him.” Deanna sat back in the chair and gazed at the doctor soberly. 

Kate blinked, cocked her head, and now seemed to be staring at something beyond Deanna. “Where are you right now?”

“I’m in quarters -- we’re at a starbase, and I haven’t been on duty for a few days. Why?”

“Either you’re sharing quarters with the captain or you’re borrowing his things. Isn’t that one of his thousand archaeological finds on that shelf over your right shoulder?”

Deanna turned to look. “One of them, yes.”

“So you are in Picard’s quarters?”

“I moved in last week. With my foster son, Alexander.”

Kate’s face moved through a series of surprised and amused expressions to settle into sly and somewhat haughty. “Deanna. Did you just tell me that Jean-Luc Picard is not only taking a member of his crew to bed with him every night, he is living with a child?”

“Worf’s son is an orphan, because Worf died protecting his captain,” Deanna said with the barest whiff of disapproval. “And we are intending to marry.”

“Worf,” Kate echoed, dismayed. “My god -- Worf is dead?”

“Yes. It’s been difficult for Alexander, but he’s doing much better now. I was afraid for a while that he would have more difficulty than he has. The captain has been instrumental in that outcome.”

Kate gave a bark of laughter at that. “You’re living with him and you’re still calling him by rank.”

“Is that a problem, Doctor?”

The mirth drained from her face. She stared at Deanna for a few moments. “You’ve changed. Haven’t you?”

Deanna interlaced her fingers and leaned on the desk. “In what way?”

“I suppose that would be inevitable. The things that happen in space, they change people. I was too surprised to think about it much -- he has to have changed too.” Kate nodded to herself, looking repentant. “Tell me about it, Deanna. What else has changed? I haven’t talked to you in months. I believe the last time we spoke you were thinking about children again?”

Deanna bowed her head and thought about that conversation. It had been so long ago now. “I did say that then, yes.”

“You’ve changed your mind?”

“Not really. Alexander’s needs took precedence. Until he’s reached a point that we know he isn’t -- “

“We,” Kate repeated. “There you go. That sounds better. How long have you been engaged?”

“How is that even relevant to anything?”

“Not long, then. You just got together and now you’re engaged.”

Deanna scowled at the doctor’s image on the monitor. “Kate!”

“You’ve forgotten who you’re talking to, Dee. The only reason you’re avoiding details is that it’s recent, and you want to keep -- “

“I want to keep you from mocking him about it,” she snapped.

“Deanna, it’s not as though he’s fragile and needs your protection. That man loves a good squabble.”

Raising her head indignantly, Deanna glared at Kate. “That’s not news. I don’t feel like listening to you flirt with him. Or listening to him when he figures out that’s what you were really doing for a year.”

“You think he doesn’t know that’s what I was doing?”

“I know he doesn’t know. You forget who you’re talking to -- compartmentalizing is his specialty, and while you were here, he had tall, thick walls around him.”

Kate smiled with genuine affection now. “And now he doesn’t, so you’re going to marry him. Have children?”

Deanna looked away, and found her eyes going to her hand, to the very old diamond solitaire on her finger, which wasn’t likely in range of the monitor. “What do you suppose it means, when a man who married his career changes his mind?”

“Perhaps it means the same thing as when you changed your mind? You wrote off the notion of marriage, as I recall.”

“I tried. Will decided not to believe me. He tried to force me, Kate. He hurt me.” Tears blurred her vision.

“I’m sorry,” Kate murmured. 

“It’s so hard, to find someone who isn’t so extreme. Too obsessed and you’re smothered, too detached and you’re easy to leave. Will was obsessed. He wouldn’t really ask, and listen to my answer.”

“So Jean-Luc knew how to ask and listen?”

Deanna smiled at it, blinking away tears. “He didn’t ask. But he knew how to listen.”

“There’s a long story behind that, I have the feeling. It makes some kind of sense though. Deanna?”

It brought her eyes back to the monitor. Kate was gazing at her sympathetically. “I need to go, Kate. I’m going to talk to Will. I need to ask him what he’s doing.”

“You think you have a reasonable chance of getting an answer? He’s not worth it. Why put yourself through it?”

“I need to make an informed choice. I need to know why he wants secrecy. If the only reason is that he intends to go out and assault more women, after he serves his time, then I want to make sure he cannot do that -- I’m going through the trial and I’m going to see his name in every newsfeed from here to the Gamma Quadrant.” Her eyes burned as she glared at her friend’s face.

“What if he wants to stay out of the limelight for other reasons?”

“That’s what I’m trying to understand.”

Kate was good at veiled looks. She nodded thoughtfully. “Do you have a reason to think he has other reasons?”

“I think Kyle recruited him. I think there are groups within Starfleet working outside the law.” No need to mention anything she had personally observed, at this time. 

Kate sipped her coffee and put down her cup carefully -- a stalling tactic. “You think I can confirm that Kyle has a lot more going on than just contracting with Starfleet. That’s why you called. Sorry, I can’t do that.”

“Because if you did, he would kill you,” Deanna said quietly.

She got a pleasant little smirk in response, and Kate put her chin in her hand, leaning a little forward. “Deanna, I think maybe you might consider just letting all this go, and going on with your life. It sounds to me that it’s shaping up to be a happy one, after all. Especially if Jean-Luc intends to stay in command and keep you aboard as an officer. It’s not safe to pry into this as you are.”

“Did Dr. Carlson give you her report yet?”

Kate froze in place, her eyebrows at half-mast.

“I remember very well how you and Kyle were together, when he was aboard. Do you want to find out how much I know? Would you prefer to confirm for me the consequences of a choice to let the trial proceed as it should and let Will suffer the consequences of his past mistakes publicly? Is he fearing for his life, and is that justified?”

Flickers of suspicion in Kate’s eyes warned her. “You aren’t thinking this through, Deanna. Just let it go.”

“I’m not a killer, Kate. Are you? If I choose one way or the other, someone could die.”

“How do you suppose I got caught up in it in the first place, Deanna?” Kate exclaimed, exasperated. “You should stop asking questions. Stop assuming they aren’t paying attention.”

“I don’t get to make that assumption when you and Nechayev have so many people in your back pockets. You knew I was with Jean-Luc before I called. You know what I want, Kate. I may be angry but I don’t want anyone to die, not even Will. Is he really in danger?”

Kate gave a quick nod, and took another drink of coffee. “You know, I always wondered if you had more going on behind that smile than everyone assumed.”

“I’m probably not going to talk to you again, Kate. It starts to look like I can’t trust anyone, any more.”

“If you keep going along that path, you’re going to end up on some distant planet in a bunker,” Kate said with a smirk.

“Better that than hypocrisy.”

“Deanna… I’m sorry. For what it’s worth.”

“So am I.” Deanna reached over and tapped the controls -- the screen winked back to the Federation logo. 

It took almost half an hour for meditation to completely settle her nerves. She left the ship, then, focusing on the task she set herself, not thinking about her child, or about her captain.

Will remained seated on the bench and gave her a sullen look when she strode into the anteroom. She crossed her arms and stood within inches of the force field. 

“I’m going to do it, Will.”

His brows drew together.

“After I sign it, I won’t see you again. I intend to file an injunction. So this is goodbye.”

Will frowned, and stood up from the bench. “I understand.”

His sadness threatened her composure, she wanted to show the anger, but she steeled herself and stared at him, unshaven and disheveled in the coverall. “Why did you think it would succeed, Will? Why did you want to enslave me?”

He almost protested it, but said nothing to answer the accusation. “I would have protected you.”

He had said that before, from time to time. She wondered now what it really meant. “I don’t need that protection, Will. And no one protected me from you, did they?”

He opened his mouth, but nothing emerged. She waited while his emotions became less tumultuous. “You don’t understand everything.”

Deanna gazed at him, and raised her head slightly. “Were you more angry at your father for his crimes committed while you were a child, or for what he convinced you to do as an adult?”

His blue eyes were clouded with startled confusion. 

“Your real problem is a long series of stupid assumptions, Will. It wouldn’t have worked the way you wanted it to, and it didn’t work that way the first time. And you never bothered to develop a clearer idea of what I really understand, did you?”

“You aren’t telepathic, so I know you don’t understand everything.”

“And I don’t have to be, to know that you have never felt the same for me -- I was never as important to you as I am to Jean-Luc. You never loved me the way he loves me. I understand that whatever you are, you aren’t what I need. You’ll never be what I thought you were, and you weren’t even close to being that, when we were younger. That’s all I need to understand.”

Will didn’t believe her. He even smirked a little. And he certainly didn’t feel any heartbreak, or any real sadness. He felt pity, just a little, and it told her that she was being successful enough in keeping him ignorant of how much she really understood. 

“I’m putting a block in the system to automatically delete messages from you and once the injunction is in place, I’m not going to mention your name again. Good luck.” She pivoted on her heel and left the room with a businesslike stride, heading down the hall and out of the starbase lockup. She made her way from the brig to the security offices and found Captain Ren’s door, and rang for entry.

“Commander,” he exclaimed, rising from his desk as she came into the small room. One wall was busy with childish drawings and images of family. His desk was bare of all but the monitor and a cup of steaming beverage that smelled somewhat like coffee.

“I wanted to let you know I’m in agreement with Captain Riker’s wishes. He can have his gag order, and I want to file an injunction to keep him away from me and my family.”

“Have a seat. Can I get you some coffee?”

“No, thank you.” Deanna watched him sit down and start to work at the monitor. “Captain, the agreement stipulates that he will plead to the rape -- it didn’t sound like it said anything about the accusations of the other women. Do those still stand?”

“You are correct -- he said nothing about those. All the complaints will still be on his record. I have been contacting them and discussing the possibility of a class action suit.”

Deanna smiled at Ren. “I’m glad to hear it. So what do we need to do?”

“I’ll just take a retinal scan from you, documenting that you agree to the terms, after we review it in detail -- I want to discuss this a little more before you agree to it. No sense in not being fully informed.”

“Of course. Whatever you need.”

Ren nodded, and as he turned to his monitor again, he noticed something -- he stared at her hands. “Is that an engagement ring?”

“Yes.”

Ren met her gaze with a smile. “Congratulations, Commander.”

“Thank you.”

She patiently listened, while Ren explained the full terms of the agreement, and at the end of the explanation, she did as instructed, consigning William Riker to the past forever. The injunction was straightforward enough, and then she was done. Ren wished her well. 

And so she left the offices, and walked through the starbase to the transporters to return to her ship. She nodded to Timmons, and left transporter room two. Before she reached the turbolift at the end of the corridor, the door opened, and Jean-Luc emerged. He strode toward her, and they stopped there in the empty corridor.

“It’s over,” she said.

“I suspected. I could tell. A little.”

Deanna gave him a broad, happy smile -- his subdued response, a slight smile, was as understated as always, but she knew the happiness, shared it with him, and she nodded. “I’m looking forward to seeing how that changes. I’ve been thinking… what do you think about Christopher?”

“Who?”

“No, the name -- I suppose it would be Christophe, in France?”

He swayed slightly, feeling a sudden wave of lightheadedness. “Are you….”

“I’m not pregnant. But I started to think about names, for some reason. Maybe it’s because Rene is here -- he looks so much like you, when we had that transporter accident that made you appear to be twelve?”

Jean-Luc turned slowly toward the lift. “Why don’t we go get some lunch? It sounds like… we need to talk.”

“Or perhaps Lucien,” she said, following him. “What do you think?”

“Shouldn’t we discuss a few other things first? We do have some decisions to make regarding a wedding.”

“I suppose we should. I also like Matthieu.”

Jean-Luc stared at the floor in the lift. “Ten Forward.”

“Are we going to include the crew at all? Have the ceremony aboard the ship? Or should we elope? We could have the ceremony and the honeymoon on Lavonia.” Deanna kept smiling at him, tucking her hand around his arm. “Or Earth. We could have it at the Picard chateau, with your family.”

She could tell it was starting to overwhelm him, so went quiet, leaning to press her cheek against his shoulder. He calmed down again, after a few moments.

“I think we should have it here,” he said quietly. “On the ship. Your mother can attend, and my family, and the senior staff.”

“When?”

“I think at least six months. That will give me enough time to learn to dance. I wouldn’t want to miss the first dance at the reception, with you.”

She sighed, and held on to his arm. When the lift stopped she almost floated out, hoping that by the time they came through the door into Ten Forward that she might stop grinning so joyfully. 

“I knew you liked to dance, but I underestimated how happy that would make you,” he commented, a little taken aback. 

“No, Jean-Luc, it’s more a reflection of how happy you make me.” She let go of his arm as they approached the door. “Are we meeting your brother and sister-in-law for lunch?”

Jean-Luc took her hand in his, unexpectedly, and followed her in. “Yes. I thought we might include them, in talking about the wedding?”

“Of course.” Deanna kept smiling as they went to join Robert and Marie, who were watching Guinan place drinks in front of them.


	36. But What About Baby's Ass Pink?

“You don’t seem very happy, Jean-Luc,” Marie said. 

Deanna had kept up most of the conversation -- Marie had wanted to discuss the wedding, of course, offering to host it at home. The conversation had wandered for a while from the initial offer. Jean-Luc had said little as they chatted about possible locations and other details, and listened with the same vague discomfort she had come to know from the occasions he had professed lack of experience in relationships. It wasn’t unusual, she knew, for weddings to become anxiety-ridden conflicts between couples. As captain he had performed a number of ceremonies and so had some exposure to that kind of thing. 

They had been in Ten Forward for nearly an hour, by this point, and the other patrons had all gone back to their duty shifts or moved on, so there were two other people besides Guinan in the room. Robert slouched his his chair, and Marie smiled warmly across the table at Deanna, with a little regret that she had been led to comment on her brother-in-law’s mood. But she was concerned, that he’d been quiet for so long.

Jean-Luc sighed and seemed to be examining the empty glass in front of him.

“Whatever the admiral told you must be serious,” Deanna said.

“Well, of course. I’m sorry,” he exclaimed. “Also, my knowledge of weddings is limited -- I show up and perform them, not plan them.”

“Perform -- you have weddings, on your ship,” Robert exclaimed.

“Ship captains do that, you know,” Deanna said. “But it’s the security chief who delivers the babies.”

Jean-Luc chuckled at it. “Only in extreme circumstances. Given the situation we were in, I think Worf had the easier end of the deal.”

Marie smiled bemusedly, and glanced back and forth between them. “Worf was your Klingon friend?”

“There was a catastrophe, the ship was severely damaged by a spatial phenomenon -- a cosmic string,” Deanna said. “I was on the bridge. Jean-Luc was stuck in a turbolift with an injured leg and three children. Worf was in here, in Ten Forward, and Keiko went into labor -- it’s safe to say he didn’t enjoy the experience. After that, he started to run out of rooms if he noticed a pregnant woman was present.”

Robert frowned a little. “I suppose I knew people were having children, on this thing.”

“But pregnancy wasn’t something you considered? We have two pregnant officers at the moment. One of them is giving birth right now.” 

Jean-Luc stiffened in his chair. “Really?”

“Sickbay is just two decks down -- I can sense the process well enough. Rachel said she wanted to name the baby after her grandmother.” Deanna considered asking for another cup of tea. 

“Are you going to be having children as well?” Robert asked, with the amused tone that suggested he was trying to deliberately provoke his brother. 

It was perhaps a good measure of how much change had taken place, that it had very little impact. Instead of being alarmed, or embarrassed, Jean-Luc simply smiled at Robert and then looked at Deanna. “Ten, you said?”

She laughed at him. “At least. Perhaps fifteen?”

“My goodness,” Marie exclaimed. “Something tells me you’ll change your mind after the first one, dear.”

“It’s not really something we’ve talked about yet. Not beyond agreeing that we wanted them, anyway.” Jean-Luc glanced at Deanna again, with less amusement. 

“Unlike him, you seem happier, more at ease, today,” Marie said to Deanna. 

“The case against the other officer, that I mentioned -- it was settled, so we won’t have to go through a trial. It’s a relief.”

“But he wasn’t let go, was he?” Robert exclaimed.

“No, part of the arrangement was a guilty plea. He’s also still facing whatever comes of all the complaints made by other women. But that’s nothing I need to think about, any longer.” Deanna smiled happily about it, turning to Jean-Luc. “I asked Ren to add an injunction, to keep Will away from us even after he’s served his sentence.”

“Probably better for all concerned.”

“And then on to the next crisis,” Marie said with a shake of the head. “I do admire you both, for what you do. I appreciate the opportunity to come be with you and see it first hand -- it’s a different world, your ship.”

“This young man you mentioned, who might be your son, he’ll be here today?” Robert asked. “If we do have a nephew we might want to meet him.”

“The _Havana_ will be here in twelve hours,” Jean-Luc said. He wasn’t upset by it as he had been before. “I think you should talk to him, Deanna.”

“Me? Are you asking the counselor, or the Betazoid?”

“Perhaps I’m simply asking for moral support, which you’ve always been regardless,” he said. 

Deanna turned at the sound of the door, glancing over automatically, to see that Mike and Leila were arriving for a late lunch. They came over to greet them -- Deanna sighed, shared a glance with Marie -- Leila was as sweet as she was beautiful, young, slender, and when she wasn’t in uniform she wore her wheat-colored hair down and straight. 

Mike was, as he had always claimed, enamored of his lovely wife, and followed her over to one of the smaller tables by the viewports after saying hello to them. The two of them were discussing something intently. 

“Makes me feel old,” Robert muttered. 

“I had hair like that, at that age. Lovely long hair,” Marie said. “Now it’s more a matter of convenience, keeping it shorter.”

Deanna picked up her glass, and gestured at Jean-Luc’s. “More tea?”

“Certainly.”

When she returned from the bar and put another cup in front of him, Jean-Luc gave her a look that made her wonder. He continued to feel restless. She sat and looked back at him, waiting. “Something wrong?”

“Not at all. I was just thinking that I should get back to the ready room.”

Deanna nodded. “I’m resuming appointments tomorrow. After we see you off -- are you sure you can’t stay a little longer, Marie? It's been so nice to have you here.”

Marie glanced at Robert with a rueful smile. “I think it will be difficult to console Rene, but it’s been difficult for Robert to be away from the vineyard for so long. But I’m glad you let us at least start to plan the wedding -- you haven’t mentioned what you might want to wear, yet, though.”

“That may be the simplest part of the wedding, if she decides to adhere to Betazoid wedding attire,” Jean-Luc said with a smirk. 

“Is it the same as Betazoid evening wear?” Robert had a similar smirk.

“I wouldn’t do that to him -- if I go traditional, my mother will too, and we’ve already endured that trauma once, when Mother had a wedding here on the ship,” Deanna exclaimed. “I’ll just wear the dress uniform.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. I was just picturing you in a lovely gown,” Marie said. Jean-Luc felt the same disappointment -- he sipped tea and said nothing. So he wanted to see her in a gown.

“We have six months to think about it. Who knows, we may have rewritten everything several times by then.” Deanna smiled at him. “The details are less important to me than the end result, anyway.”

Jean-Luc stared at her. “What?”

“I suppose you expected me to have elaborate plans, with specific colors like ‘saffron’ or ‘baby’s ass pink,’ but if you want that kind of bride you’ll have to order me to care.”

Marie started to laugh at them, while Jean-Luc’s eyebrows tried to migrate to the top of his head and Robert slapped his hand to his mouth and guffawed. He waved a finger at her. “You are a delightful girl,” he exclaimed. 

“There’s something about Starfleet that dispels that kind of thinking, for me,” she added. “Or maybe it’s that my mother endlessly plans on my behalf, and I’m tired of knowing how many thousands of shades of pink there are in the universe.”

“I’m stuck wondering what shade ‘baby’s ass pink’ might be,” Jean-Luc mumbled. “And terrified to find out -- who knows if the next uniform redesign might feature it.”

“My colors were a lovely dusky rose, and sage green,” Marie said, reaching over to take Robert’s hand. “I wore an off-the-shoulder gown with spring flowers in my hair. And it was perfect.”

“It rained,” Robert said, grinning, looking at Marie as if it were yesterday. “We all ran inside and had the ceremony in the living room instead of the gazebo, and the reception had to be rescued and brought in as well.”

Jean-Luc’s smile turned sad. “I’m sorry I missed it.”

Both of them turned to regard him with open affection. Deanna had to tone down her smile, to not bring Jean-Luc’s attention too much on how things had changed. Robert nodded slowly. “I’m sorry I didn’t invite you.”

Then they were grinning at each other, and laughing a little. Rather than disrupt it, Deanna sipped tea and kept her gaze in her cup. Somewhere below them a celebration was happening in sickbay; she could sense the mother's tired joy clearly. The Picards went on to talk about Robert’s wedding for a bit, with some anecdote about a guest they both knew having drunk too much and passing out in a corner, to the embarrassment of his wife. Until Marie leaned across and put her hand on Deanna’s arm, getting their attention.

“Deanna?”

She raised her head with a smile. “I was just enjoying a moment -- Rachel Timmons just had her baby, she’s very happy. It was a little distracting to sense it. Easy to get caught up in emotions like that.”

“Every time you say something like that, I think about how wonderful it would be to be an empath. And then I think of the down side,” Marie said. 

“Some of us have been the down side,” Jean-Luc commented. “Fortunately you haven’t held any grudges.”

The door opened again, and Deanna sat up, grinning. “Here she comes, for the baby day cocktail.”

“The what?” Jean-Luc’s head turned, and his quizzical little smile was amusing to her as well.

“Beverly loves delivering babies. She always comes for a drink to celebrate.” Deanna tipped her head back over her left shoulder, to look up at the smiling doctor as she reached their table. “What’s the baby’s name?”

“Felicity Ann,” Beverly said, dropping into the fifth chair at their table. She still wore the blue lab coat over her uniform. “Eight pounds, six ounces, gorgeous full head of black hair.”

“Guinan,” Deanna called, waving. “Beverly needs a drink.”

“One obstetrician’s special, coming right up,” Guinan replied from behind the bar. She plunked a tall glass on the counter and started to pull bottles up from beneath the bar. 

“Is this a tradition, drinking in the middle of the day?” Jean-Luc asked.

Deanna exchanged an amused smile with Beverly. Guinan arrived, placed the tall glass full of a multi-colored beverage in front of the doctor, and went back to her bar. 

“Here’s to birthdays,” Beverly exclaimed, raising the glass and taking a sip. “And Captain Uptight.”

“Good God,” Jean-Luc blurted. “You didn’t need a drink, you’re already giddy.”

“This is what you miss, if you’re hiding on the bridge all day, every day, while people are having babies.” Deanna watched Beverly take another drink. “Easy, doc, slow it down.”

“She’s really happy about this,” Marie exclaimed. “I knew giving birth was a happy occasion. I wasn’t aware one could become high, facilitating a birth.”

“Perhaps this is an opportunity,” Robert said. “We should ask her what ‘baby’s ass pink’ looks like. Then Marie will know what color bridesmaid's dress to buy.”

Jean-Luc almost inhaled his tea instead of sipping it, almost dropped the cup putting it down, and started to laugh with his brother. 

Beverly gave Deanna a startled look. “He’s not serious? Pink? I can’t wear pink!”

Deanna laughed too, then, sinking in her chair a little. “This is going to be the most interesting wedding. Maybe the men should wear pink, and the women should be in dress uniform.”

“Does that mean I have to be sworn in?” Marie asked, giggling.

“Perhaps you should have a theme,” Beverly suggested. 

“The men can dress like Dixon Hill.” Deanna reached for Beverly’s glass and tried it. There was too much pineapple.

“And the women can dress like cowboys. If you’re going to go with favorite holodeck programs.”

“Beverly,” Deanna scolded gently. Now Jean-Luc was staring at her with another round of surprise, because he didn’t remember that she enjoyed westerns. She hadn’t indulged in that holodeck program in a long time.

“She likes cowboys,” Robert said, as if he’d discovered something intriguing.

“My father told me stories about them. Alexander likes simulations involving the Old West,” Deanna said. “But I don’t think that’s exactly the right theme for a wedding.”

“You're seriously planning the wedding right now? How are you talking about the wedding without me?” Beverly cried. “How am I supposed to be a good best man if I’m not involved in talking about the wedding?”

Deanna started laughing again. 

“Wait,” Jean-Luc blurted. “I thought I get to choose a best man. How am I being left out of this decision?”

“It’s all right,” Deanna said between giggles. “I was going to ask Data to be my maid of honor.”

“If this is how it’s going to go, I suppose Robert could give away the bride, and I’ll perform the ceremony,” Marie said.

“This sounds more fun all the time.” Beverly took another deep swig of her drink. “Guinan, however, must tend the bar.”

“I don’t think Data could possibly be your maid of honor.” Jean-Luc waved his cup at Deanna. “Pink isn’t his color either.”

Deanna waved her hands as if throwing it all away. “Okay, starting over. We’ll steal a shuttle and elope.”

“I already have four betting pools going, you can’t do that,” Beverly exclaimed with a scowl. “Come on!”

“I suppose if we’re inviting the fleet admiral there will have to be some level of formality,” Deanna said with a sigh. “I think we’ll just have to hire my mother to plan it.”

“Wait, this is the same mother who wants fifteen nude men to carry you into the ceremony?” Jean-Luc exclaimed. 

Beverly snorted. “Don’t sound so disdainful -- she might let you choose the fifteen nude women who are supposed to carry you in.”

Robert leaned forward, put his head in his hands, and started to laugh again, quietly. Marie touched his arm, joining him with her quiet giggles. “Oh, I’m so glad we came,” she said quietly. “I really hope we can come to an agreement on where this wedding will be. We'll need advance notice to book passage to whatever planet they choose.”

“Guinan,” Jean-Luc called. When the hostess glided over in her purple hat and robe, he smiled up at her. “I think we need drinks all the way around. It sounds like extended negotiations are about to begin.”

And then Mike, followed by his Leila, slowly approached them. “So you’re planning it? You’re going to need security, you know. And it just so happens I have experience in the entertainment industry -- I know where we can find this great stripper for the bachelor party!”

Deanna couldn’t help it -- now she laughed until her sides hurt, and the others were joining her, as of course they all knew about the mission, Mike had told everyone at the engagement dinner what a great dancer she wasn’t. She gestured for them to pull chairs over, as Guinan returned to bring drinks. The conversation turned to location again, and now Beverly was describing a Risan retreat where Deanna had to march down an aisle with a hammer smashing horga'hns. Jean-Luc fell into the amused quiet state with which he usually tolerated the nonsense of his friends -- not wanting to participate fully, but enjoying the situation just the same.

At the height of the merriment, after Guinan had joined them with a drink of her own, the door opened again. Data, in uniform, came to their table, his head twitching a little as he surveyed the smiling faces.

“Data, what’s your favorite color?” Beverly asked into the brief lull in conversation. 

“I do not have a favorite color, Beverly.”

“Are you looking for me, Commander?” Jean-Luc asked, coming slightly to attention. 

“I am, sir. We have heard from the _Havana_. They will be arriving in an hour, ahead of schedule. And there is a Captain Holloway requesting permission to come aboard.”

Deanna gazed up at him with innocent eyes. “How do you feel about baby’s ass pink?”

Data blinked exactly once. “I know of no such color. It is my understanding that the color of a baby is determined by genetics, and that a minority of them feature any shade of pink.”

“Green,” Beverly exclaimed. “It works for him, it works for me -- as long as there’s no yellow undertones. It works for Leila, too.”

Leila nodded happily. "As flower girl and head bottle washer, I aim to please."

“All right, I’m going to the transporter room to get Ben -- Data, you can chair this discussion in my absence,” Jean-Luc exclaimed, rising from his seat. 

“But I do not know what you are discussing, sir,” Data said.

“Oh, trust me, that’s not going to matter a whit.” Jean-Luc gave Deanna a fond look and a pat on the shoulder, and strode off for the door. 

Data shrugged a little and came around to seat himself in the empty chair. “You requested information about ‘baby’s ass pink.’ Have you considered vermilion, or perhaps teal?”

Marie leaned forward with her chin in her hand, a little pink in the cheeks. Guinan must be using the real alcohol. “Gold,” she murmured thoughtfully. “A lovely shade of red, with gold jewelry, for you. It would be striking. The wedding party could wear golden gowns.”

“Ah,” Data exclaimed. “Accessing… weddings, Betazoid and human.”

Beverly snapped her fingers. "I've got it! Water buffalo brown!"

Deanna hid her face in her hands. "I need another drink...."


	37. Family Negotiations

Hundreds of trips to the bridge, Deanna thought, as she left the lift and nodded to Natchez, sitting watch -- she thought about what it took to wear the tough carpeting to the point that it needed replacement, as had been done that morning. The smell of the adhesive they used still stung her sinuses as she entered the ready room. There were a couple of men working at the helm, as well, replacing some circuitry.

The young man who was supposed to be the captain’s son turned to look at her as she came in -- they were sitting on the sofa, and that there were tumblers of liquor in hand instead of tea cups told her much. She hesitated, smiling, and as Jason Vigo rose and held out a hand, she took it. 

“Counselor Troi,” Jean-Luc said. “This is Jason Vigo. I wanted you to meet him.”

“What’s your name?” Jason asked with a smile -- he held on to her fingers and leaned forward, looking her in the eye. 

“My name is Deanna Troi,” she said, pulling free of his grasp. “Captain?”

“Have a seat, if you would.”

Deanna moved to the chair instead of joining them, sitting across the table from them. She noticed Jason’s interest in her waned somewhat, as he sat down again, picked up his glass, and glanced at his host. He was wary, not about her but about the captain, and it was that particular quality of anxiety that she had found usually correlated with deception -- he had something to hide. 

“Jason and I were just talking about the situation -- about Bok, and why he is threatening Jason’s life.” Jean-Luc took a small sip of whiskey. 

“I’m curious, Mr. Vigo, whether Bok made himself known to you before the authorities came to find you,” she said, continuing her pleasant counselor’s smile. 

“Nope. You never see Ferengi on Camor.”

Deanna nodded thoughtfully. “It’s confusing, you know, that he’s continuing to send messages threatening to kill you and you’ve never seen the Ferengi or anyone else make the attempt. Did the captain tell you that some of Bok’s men captured his stepson and his nephew, just the other day? We apprehended them, of course.”

“No kidding,” Jason exclaimed. His smile was now totally gone. “A stepson?”

“So had your mother told you about your father? I’m surprised you haven’t tried to contact him before.” 

“Well, I would have, but Mom never told me who he was.” Jason sounded a bit defensive. He should, actually.

“She must have had a good reason.” Deanna folded her hands in her lap and kept smiling. “Will you be staying with us until the threat is over?”

“I, uh -- guess so.” Another glance at Jean-Luc. 

Deanna met Jean-Luc’s gaze with a knowing look then, and waited. He adopted a resigned expression.

“Although, I think it might be best if I just went back to Camor,” Jason continued, sounding nonchalant but feeling otherwise. Anxious, and a little fearful. “I don’t want to cause anyone any trouble. I really appreciate you looking out for me.”

The guilt wasn’t amounting to much, but it was there. Deanna smiled again at the boy. He was that, even if he was an adult. “You were paid well, I hope,” she said casually.

Jean-Luc’s head turned -- he came to attention, and watched the young man avidly. Jason froze for a few seconds and started to fidget, but caught himself.

“I’m sorry?”

“By Bok.” Deanna’s smile widened. “Surely you’re not going to make us go to all the trouble of dragging you to sickbay? We have a much more advanced collection of medical instruments to assess whether or not you’re really his son.”

“I -- “ Jason wavered.

“Mr. Vigo,” Jean-Luc said quietly. It was the tone he used with officers on the verge of making bad decisions. It was enough -- Jason looked at the floor.

“You don’t understand.”

“You already told me what life was like, for you and your mother,” Jean-Luc said. “Camor isn’t a prosperous planet, and it must have been an appealing offer he made. It sounds like she could use any help she could get, raising children in a place like that.”

“You should stay with us until it’s over and you’re safe,” Deanna said. “It’s very likely that Bok intends to kill you, not reward you by actually paying you what he promised you.”

Jean-Luc gave her an appreciative glance. “She’s right. Ferengi are not easily parted from their currency.”

Jason looked back and forth between them with growing incredulity. “You’re actually… You want to save me? Even though I was part of the deception.”

Jean-Luc’s lips thinned, but he forced a smile and said, “Your mother was a friend. And you are a Federation citizen, and you’re clearly not interested in this charade any longer -- suggesting that we let you go back to Camor despite the fact that the Ferengi will likely find you and kill you would indicate that much at least.”

Jason grimaced, tried to smile, couldn’t seem to look at either of them, and shrugged a little. “I didn’t expect you to be…. Mom didn’t tell me anything about her past. She kept telling us to focus on the future. She would talk about people who treat each other well, instead of trying to rob you blind as they do on Camor. The older I got the less I believed that.”

Jean-Luc nodded, clearly thinking about Miranda Vigo as he had known her. “Perhaps she felt she could bring some of those ideals to Camor herself. Make it true.”

Jason smirked. “Oh, yeah. We were supposed to be part of the new order. After she was killed I had to start swiping food to keep the younger kids fed. I got a job, but it wasn’t enough to keep the house. We keep trying to get enough to leave, head for some better place to live.”

This was honest enough -- now that the pretense was gone, he started to sound, and feel, like an earnest person, who had others he cared about. “How many of you are there?” Deanna asked.

“There are five of us left. Six if you count Megan, but she was locked up for stealing clothes several months ago.” Jason took a hit of the whiskey and plunked the empty glass on the table. He looked at it as if he was sorry to see it empty. 

“So the money Bok was going to give you was supposed to rescue you?”

“It would have gotten Megan out -- paid the damages. And it would have gotten us fare on one of the monthly transports that come and go.”

Deanna exchanged another look with Jean-Luc. He was thinking too, about this. “I can’t imagine that Miranda intended for you to be in this circumstance,” he said at last. “We’re departing shortly, and after we deal with Bok we’ll take you to Camor to retrieve your….”

“Family,” Deanna said, smiling, naming it based on how Jason felt as he spoke of them.

Jason gaped at them. “What?”

“If being on a starship would make them nervous, we can be sure you’ll have spaces on the transport,” Deanna said. “I highly recommend heading for one of the core worlds, perhaps Earth itself. Perhaps while you’re aboard you should research civil rights of Federation citizens.”

“I’ve arranged for you to have quarters on deck nine, section four, cabin six,” Jean-Luc said. “You can ask the computer the way, if you need to.”

“All right, thanks,” Jason said. “I think I’ll… thanks.”

“There are things I need to take care of this afternoon,” Jean-Luc said. “But I would like to spend some time with you tomorrow. I’d like to hear more about your mother’s school.”

It was just the latest in a series of surprises for the young man. He nodded and took his leave, wandering out of the ready room a little dazed. 

Once they were alone, Jean-Luc gazed at her with lidded eyes. “Come here.”

She moved to the sofa, sitting thigh to thigh with him, and his arm settled over her shoulders. “It went well. I’m glad he isn’t a more active part of Bok’s conspiracy. It sounds like he was only thinking about what he would gain.”

“Are you any closer to knowing what you want to do about the wedding?”

“I know who the groom will be.”

He kissed her cheek, turning to face her. “I had been thinking about asking Beverly for help with the dancing. But I’d rather ask you. I’d rather learn to dance with you.”

“As you wish.”

“What do you wish?”

Deanna frowned a little. “What do you mean?”

“I mean is there anything you’re missing. Something you want to change.”

“Are you having difficulty believing that you’re making me happy, as things have been? Or is there something, perhaps, that you want to be different?”

His hands slid down her arms, as he leaned close and felt the desire for her that he typically indulged only after everyone was gone and Alexander in bed. “Perhaps after Robert and Marie are on their way home we can spend some time, just the two of us?”

“We can do that. We can go riding. You can help me pick out a gown for the wedding.”

He sat back with a bit of the befuddlement he’d had earlier. “That’s… not traditional.”

“I have the feeling tradition went out the aft nacelle a long time ago,” Deanna exclaimed. “I would rather have something that I know you will appreciate.”

“Come here,” he said again, pulling her to him until her arms were around his neck.

“You will be a wonderful father,” she said, as she settled into his embrace contentedly.

It led to an emotional reaction, happiness and contentment, that encouraged her, and his arms tightened around her. But it was only for a few moments. He smiled apologetically. “I have a few things to do, before the end of the day. Can you check on Jason, before going to pick up Alexander?”

“Certainly. I hope you don’t mind that I took the initiative, to arrange for dinner in the captain’s private dining room. I thought it might be nice to have it there.”

“Are we changing out of uniform for the occasion?”

“I will. I hope you will. I love you, Jean-Luc.”

His face changed -- the shy smile was not his usual, and she couldn’t help mirroring the expression. “You’re not helping me focus on work. I should be disturbed that I do not care more.”

“No, you’ll get everything done, as usual. I’ll see you in a few hours.” She hesitated, then leaned in to kiss his cheek, before rising to go.

She left the lift on deck nine and then hesitated in the corridor. “Computer, location of Jason Vigo.”

“Jason Vigo is in his quarters.”

When she touched the panel, it took a few minutes to get a response. The door opened and she stepped in, and found Jason shirtless. “I’m sorry,” she said, backing a step. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I merely came to see if you needed anything -- guests sometimes don’t understand how to access the computer or use the replicator.”

“No, no problem -- I was about to give the bath a try. Haven’t had a real bathtub in a long time.” Jason grinned, more openly appreciative than he had been with the captain in the room. “Y’know, you can… join me, if you like. Show me how it works.”

Deanna gave him a dubious look. “I think not. I suppose I should be flattered?”

Now he looked down at the floor, acting more embarrassed than he was. “Sorry. I get a little carried away, I guess, when I see a pretty face.”

“On this ship we treat each other as respectfully as we wish to be treated ourselves. You might want to curtail flirtatious behavior and settle for just being polite.” She sighed a little. “And I’m not single, even if I had any interest.”

“Yeah, that figures. Can’t blame a guy for trying.” Jason slung the towel he was holding over his shoulder. “I think I have the computer figured out, thanks.”

“All right. You can plan to have lunch in the captain’s quarters, tomorrow.”

“You’re his secretary, or something, huh?”

“I’m one of his officers. This is his ship.” Deanna put her hands behind her back. “Since you have it all figured out, I’ll leave you to it, then. I’ll see you tomorrow, most likely.”

“Okay, see you tomorrow, Deanna.”

She left, rolling her eyes as she went, and headed for her quarters to change. As she came out of the bedroom in the jade green dress, putting combs in her hair, Alexander came home at a run, laughing, and with the smallest of pauses leaped to hug her. 

“Hello, little tiger. You didn’t wait for me to come get you from school.”

“Marie came and got us. She said we’re all having dinner together, because it’s their last night here.” Alexander paused, debating. 

“What are you thinking?”

“Rene really likes it here, Mom. We’re all going to miss him. I wish he didn’t have to go.”

Deanna smiled fondly at her son. “I’m sure we’ll see them again -- we’ll all be together for the wedding, you know. Change your clothes for dinner. It looks like you were painting today.”

“We were. And I talked to Ms. Morrison -- I told her you should teach us about cowboys,” he exclaimed. 

“That sounds like fun, actually. But not today.”

Alexander grinned. “No, next week. We have plenty of time to come up with a plan. We can make a holodeck program.”

“We can, yes. For now, how about a clean shirt and those nice brown slacks.”

She waited for him, and when he came out dressed as she’d requested, they left together hand in hand. Alexander let go at some point and took her arm instead. When she glanced at him he shrugged.

“Doesn’t the captain do this?”

“I wondered where you learned it.” She patted his hand. 

“The captain said we’re going to Qo’nos sometime soon. He said he wanted me to spend time with my relatives, too. But he said we should talk to you about it first.”

“I think I’ll talk to him about it tomorrow. I have a lot of things to discuss with him.”

“I bet -- it’ll be like when the O’Briens got married. Data told me all about that when I asked him about weddings. You wear a beautiful dress, and everyone else dresses up in formal uniforms, and someone walks you down the aisle to hand you off to the captain to marry him.”

“Someone, yes. It’s usually the father of the bride. Keiko had Data do that for her since her father is dead. I suppose I have to make that decision too -- I could have Data do it, or Mike, or Geordi.”

“Or me,” Alexander exclaimed.

“I was thinking you could be the ring bearer.”

‘Or I could be the best man,” Alexander exclaimed.

“I was supposing that he might ask his brother to do that. We have a lot of choices to make so I’m sure we’ll talk all about it before the wedding, but not today,” Deanna said as they approached the Picards’ quarters. When the door opened, they stepped in to find Marie in a green dress, a pastel shade rather than the jade Deanna had chosen. She was amused by the coincidence.

“Are we ready to go?” Deanna asked. They hadn’t seen the arboretum -- for some reason, Jean-Luc hadn’t showed it to them in the short tours he’d given them of various parts of the ship -- so she’d intended to spend an hour showing them the gardens before dinner.

“I’d rather we sit down to discuss something, if you don’t mind,” Marie said, gesturing at the room behind her. 

“Is something wrong?” Deanna followed her to the couch, glancing at Alexander, following her. 

Robert came from one of the bedrooms, with Rene at his side. Neither of them looked happy. “Why can’t I, Papa?”

“We can’t stay here,” Robert exclaimed. “This isn’t your home, Rene.”

“But I wouldn’t stay forever,” Rene exclaimed. He was on the verge of tears, upset, not because he wanted his way, Deanna thought, but because he knew his father was upset. 

“What’s the problem?” Deanna asked softly, concerned. Though she thought she knew just from what had been said so far. 

“Rene is asking if he can stay here with you,” Robert exclaimed angrily. 

Deanna smiled at Rene sympathetically. “I know you like the other kids, but you do need to have your parents’ permission, and it doesn’t sound like they want you to. And I know how they feel -- Rene, no parent wants to be so far away from their child. Do you understand that?”

“But, just for a little while,” Rene pleaded. “I like Alexander. I like it here, I want to spend more time with my uncle.”

“Rene, we’re at a starbase right now,” Deanna said, hoping she could settle this down. Both Robert and Marie were too upset -- Marie was afraid, and Robert was more afraid and furious as a result. “It’s not going to be the same once we are on a mission. I work more, and your uncle is sometimes working half the night. We’re given missions that are outside Federation space. It wouldn’t be possible to just get you back to Earth in a few days -- you know we’ll be together again for the wedding. I’m sorry. I would absolutely love for you to stay, it’s not that you aren’t welcome, I just don’t think it would be a good idea.”

“But -- “ Rene’s lip quivered, and he turned and half-ran for his room again. 

“Can I go talk to him, Mom?” Alexander said. He looked at her with earnest concern and the sobriety that was so unlike a child his age in his demeanor. 

“Did you suggest this to him?”

Alexander shook his head sadly. “Bo did. Sorry, Mom. I tried to tell Bo -- “

“Go, then.” Deanna watched him head in after his -- step-cousin? 

“I knew this was a mistake,” Robert grumbled, almost falling into the chair, bending forward and putting his hands on his head. 

“You did not know,” Deanna said. “You had an opinion that you feel is supported by Rene’s desire to live on the ship for a while. He’ll be disappointed, as I was when my father refused to take us with him when he left for duty. He’ll adjust, as I did. You’ll see.”

Robert sat up and gave her his version of Jean-Luc’s warning scowl. He looked at her, looked away at the wall, grimaced, and looked at her again. He opened his mouth, but reined himself in -- after a moment he took a deep breath, exhaled, and started to smirk as he thought it through. Marie was calming down as he did all this, so it must be a typical sequence for him to proceed through.

“My dear,” he said quietly. “You are correct.”

“I know you don’t like the ship, the replicators, or anything else about this life,” Deanna said. She smiled sadly and folded her hands in her lap. “I can sense your distaste, with every bite you take of the food. I know you’ve tolerated a great deal of discomfort to be here. And I know you don’t think it’s a rational fear to have, because you know you can take Rene home whether he wants to go or not. But you’re afraid you’ll lose him to this -- you already fear that you have, in part. This isn’t a new issue for me to deal with -- Alexander and his father argued incessantly about the most ridiculous things, but behind it all the real issue was that Worf wanted him to think and feel as Worf wanted, and Alexander wanted to have fun and not think about anything. Worf expected a little boy to make a decision that would have an impact on the rest of his life. He wouldn’t have had to make that decision if they were living at home on the Klingon homeworld, it would have been just what was normal.”

“Alexander, the little boy who does everything you tell him to?”

“I know what you see -- but it’s not what you think it is.” Deanna settled back on the sofa and smiled sadly. “Alexander, like so many foster children, tries very hard to be good because he’s afraid to lose the family he has. He’s a traumatized little boy who watched his mother die, and lost his father just a few months ago. He’s very smart, and funny, and he genuinely loves your son, and all his friends. What works with him isn’t going to work with other children. I think you probably have had very little difficulty with Rene -- it must be difficult to see him so upset.”

“He’s always been easy to handle -- so eager to please,” Marie said. 

Alexander interrupted them by reappearing, to come sit next to Deanna and lean on her. She put an arm around him. He was pleased with himself. “Everything all right?”

“Yeah. It’s okay.”

Rene came out then, and gave his father a wavering smile. Robert held out an arm, and welcomed his boy into a hug. 

“I know you dream about starships, but you are too young,” Robert murmured. “Don’t make us miss you before you are grown up.”

Rene nodded -- but his smile was sad, and he still had tears drying on his cheeks. His father brushed them away with his thumb.

Deanna smiled, relieved that things had resolved. “We still have a little time before dinner. Do we still want to see the arboretum?”

“Can we just go to the dining room? I would like to relax with something to drink,” Marie said. “We can talk -- perhaps more seriously than before about the wedding?”

“All right. The food won’t be there just yet. I ordered in from one of the restaurants on the starbase -- there is a Basque restaurant here, believe it or not.”

“Wonderful,” Robert exclaimed, rising from his chair with a grin.

By the time Jean-Luc got there, Robert had opened a bottle of wine, Marie was laughing at the boys telling some of Alexander’s favorite jokes, and they had the album that Robert had brought with them open on the table. Deanna came to him, as he slowly entered the room, still in uniform. 

“Mike is picking up the food as we speak. Come look at their wedding pictures.”

“Everything all right?” he muttered.

“Of course. It wasn’t, for a bit, but it’s fine now. I’ll tell you later.”

But later didn’t come for Deanna. They ate lamb, drank wine, talked some more about weddings -- Deanna admitted that she like best the idea of having theirs outdoors, rather than inside -- and had dessert, a lovely pie from a bakery aboard the starbase. Robert followed the kids off to the corner where Deanna had put the kadis-kot board, to give them something to do while the adults were sitting around talking over dessert.

And then he returned to the table, as Marie dished up a second piece of pie for him, and picked up his fork. “Jean-Luc,” he said with a seriousness that got his brother’s attention.

Jean-Luc had his hand on Deanna’s back, where his fingertips idly wound themselves in her hair; she felt his hand flatten against her left shoulder blade as he turned to his brother. “Robert?”

Robert gave Marie a look -- his apology, Deanna thought, and a plea for forbearance. “I have been thinking. Deanna, my dear, I know what we discussed -- but I have to wonder if it might be better -- I wonder if you might let him stay for a few weeks, with you.”

“Robert,” Marie exclaimed, tears starting in her eyes. 

Jean-Luc stared at his brother as if he’d turned into a stranger. “What?”

“Rene was asking, earlier, if he could stay,” Deanna said quietly. She glanced at the boys sitting on the floor in the corner, taking turns slapping colored disks on the board. 

Jean-Luc met her eyes. For a few moments they were connected, and she knew he could tell how it alarmed her, the thought of having his nephew there, for an extended period. He sighed, shook his head. “The next assignment is fairly routine. We’re to survey a new system, for possible colonization. Nechayev suggested that the next few were going to be similar -- I think she wants to give us a break. But you know how it is.”

“But even if nothing at all happened, would we be able to get him back to Earth in good time?”

“The new house computer would mean we could talk to him every week,” Robert said softly, touching Marie’s shoulder.

Marie gaped at him -- so did Jean-Luc. “What did you just say?” Turning to Deanna, he grinned. “Somewhere hell is freezing over.”

“Oh, Robert, are you sure?”

“Look at him, Marie.”

They all turned to look -- Rene was putting a piece on the board. Deanna knew he was less enthusiastic than before, by sensing it; he didn’t appear to be any less happy, but sometimes when Alexander was looking at the board, Rene’s smile faded a bit. 

“But he’ll adjust,” Marie said sadly. 

“Robert, you don’t really want to do this,” Jean-Luc said, bemused.

Robert grinned across the table at them. He pointed at Deanna. “You tell me how easy it would be, to refuse her anything she wants. It’s harder with your only child.”

Deanna sighed and took up another bite of berry pie on her fork, and occupied herself with chewing while Marie sighed and cried a little, and finally smiled at her husband. And Robert called the kids over, and the party started. Especially when Alexander happily offered to share his room.

It was easy to smile -- showing all the happiness that the boys were feeling. In the master bedroom in the captain’s quarters, however, Deanna dropped the clothes she’d been wearing in the slot for cleaning and went to put the jewelry she’d worn away. Jean-Luc came in, unfastening his jacket, and went through the same process while she washed her face in the bathroom and got in bed.

“You don’t think we should let Rene stay,” he said, watching her settle on the left side of the bed.

“It’s obviously not something I can control, is it?”

“Robert trusts us. And it’s hard for me to say it’s not safe, when we have Alexander and all the other children aboard.”

“I just think about the red alerts, and the times we’ve almost had to self destruct, and the times we’ve narrowly missed complete disaster -- the saucer separation, the cosmic string, the battles, the strange sudden alien possessions that end with my coming to myself standing somewhere that I didn’t remember going with a weapon I don’t know how to use, with the business end pointed at a friend.”

“So when we start having children, we’ll have to give up the ship?” He tossed his pants in the slot and came to climb in his side, wearing only his boxers. 

Deanna lay her head on the pillow, and stared up at the stars. “We know all the risks, Jean-Luc. They’re completely unaware, really, just trusting you wouldn’t let anything happen to him.”

"And I've always had reservations about having families aboard. But we've done well enough, haven't we?"

She closed her eyes. Perhaps this was another example of him feeling rather than thinking about something. "Obviously."

“So when do you want to start having children?”

“Jean-Luc.”

“I’m serious. Let’s talk about it.”

She rolled her head to study his face. He reclined next to her, propped up on an elbow, and waited for her answer, not a shred of doubt to be sensed. He seemed quite happy, actually, and anticipating her response.

“About giving up the ship, or having children?” she asked, knowing she was being difficult. “Do you feel like we’ll have to leave Starfleet to have children?”

“No. Do you?”

“Why don’t we see how it goes, having Rene aboard?”

“Sensible. All right.” He settled in, ordering out the lights. A few minutes later, he sighed audibly. “You realize what this means?”

“Hm?”

“I can’t tell Robert he’s just like our father any longer.”

Deanna shook her head. “I could have told you that.”

“Yes, I suppose you could. And I suppose that I can see it for myself is a good sign that I’ve changed, too.”

“Counselor Troi would be happy for you, yes. As for me, I think you talk too much, and there are better things for you to do right now.”

“Yes, ma’am.”


	38. Defining Normal

Everything proceeded as normal until Robert, Marie and Rene showed up for breakfast in the morning. The tension in the room shot through the roof -- Deanna had sensed it the instant she woke, but proximity always made it more overwhelming and harder to ignore. 

“We’re doing something a little different,” Jean-Luc announced while the kids removed the breakfast dishes. “I spoke with Captain Holloway yesterday -- he’s agreeable to taking the two of you back to Earth, since he’s also taking the fleet admiral back to Command, and seeing you home. He’s also going to speak with Starfleet Security to put a few men at your home, to be certain Bok is unable to approach or harm you. Once Bok is taken care of we’ll remove them, of course. After discussion of the matter the admiral agreed to bring up the matter with the Ferengi directly, as relations between the Federation and the Ferengi are making good progress toward a treaty and it’s likely the Ferengi government will be of assistance in handling Bok.”

Instead of responding at once with an urge to make a flip comment, Robert was startled, then thankful -- he glanced at Marie happily. “I didn’t even think about the possibility these Ferengi might try to approach us.”

“This is how Jean-Luc lives, he clearly thinks in contingencies,” Marie exclaimed. She picked up what was left of her tea. “Thank you.”

“It’s time for school,” Deanna said. “We can walk the children to the classroom before we see you to the transporter room.”

It was difficult for them, saying goodbye to Rene. Each of them held the boy for a long time before letting him follow Alexander into the classroom. Alexander gave each of them a hug as well. Marie tucked her arm through Deanna’s, as they followed Jean-Luc toward the transporter room.

“Why did you change your mind about letting him stay, Robert?” Deanna asked as they approached the door. The question had been on her mind since dinner last night.

“I thought about it. That’s all.” Robert gave her a sideways glance, tucking his hands in the pockets of the black vest he wore. He pulled out a small item and offered it to her. “For you, my dear.”

She took the globe, and turned it over in her hand. Jean-Luc stopped walking and looked at it. “That was Adele’s.”

“She gave it to Marie. A keepsake, from the Swiss Alps -- there’s a story behind it. You should have him tell you,” Robert said, wagging a finger at his brother. “He should tell you about our family.”

“I’ll do that, you know.” Jean-Luc sounded somewhat offended.

Deanna studied the flakes swirling in the clear globe, around tiny peaks. “He’s told me quite a bit, actually. But not everything yet.”

Robert took her shoulders in his hands. “You are honest, and compassionate, and I know that you would never be with this old asshole if he had not changed,” he said gently, smiling. “You have the strength and the intelligence to do several jobs -- I can see that you are more than your rank. You have heart. Take care of our son, Deanna.”

“Of course,” she said, startled and flattered by his sudden confession.

“And you, asshole, you take care of her, or I will hurt you,” Robert exclaimed, turning on Jean-Luc. But he threw out his arms and embraced his brother without hesitation. 

After Marie hugged each of them, they completed the journey to the transporter room, and the couple joined their bags on the pad. They smiled as they were beamed away to the other ship. Jean-Luc nodded to TImmons and left again, without further comment, but in the lift on the way to sickbay, he had a sly smile as he gazed at the floor. 

“How do we find Bok?”

“I’m going to send a message. From Jason, actually. Telling him that he was discovered, that we analyzed his DNA and found out the truth, and so we’re dropping him off at the starbase nearest Camor. The Ferengi government is sending a vessel to apprehend Bok, to that starbase. We will meanwhile ensure that Jason and his group are on their way to some Federation world where they will be able to start over.”

“And then we move on to the next mission? So what about the rest of today? Is that what your smile is about?”

“After I get us under way, we should talk.”

“I have a couple of appointments this morning. But I thought, after you meet with Jason for lunch, that we might spend the afternoon as we discussed?”

“Yes.” His eyes were on the globe she held in her right hand. “I’ve learned a lot, this past week. About you in particular. I thought I understood you fairly well, and now it appears that I have been underestimating. I was nervous about having them here, and you managed the visit effortlessly, in spite of the pressure of dealing with the court-martial and the Ferengi.”

“Does that have something to do with how little anxiety you are feeling, about us?”

Jean-Luc kept smiling, but started to feel some odd regret. “I think seeing how you are with them, and with the children, helped set me at ease.”

The lift opened, and she stepped out, glancing back at him expectantly. “Coming with me?”

“To sickbay?”

“We haven’t greeted the newest member of the civilian population, yet. Beverly told me Rachel and her baby would be discharged today.”

He felt a little trepidation, following her into sickbay. The maternity section was to the right, and Beverly was in residence, holding the baby while Nurse Ogawa was orienting the new mother as to reasons she should come back in. Rachel looked a little dazed, but smiled at Deanna as she approached.

“Thank you, so much, Deanna,” Rachel exclaimed. “It was like you said, not as bad as I imagined it would be. Although I was sure I would just pass out, a few times. Would you like to hold her?”

Beverly passed along the bundle to her with a smile. Deanna looked down at the wizened, mottled-red face and smiled. “She has Jorge’s hair,” she said with a grin. 

“Oh, everyone’s noticed that,” Rachel said, laughing. She had her own pale golden hair tied back in a long ponytail. 

“Congratulations, Lieutenant,” Jean-Luc said, looking on but from arm’s length.

“Thank you, Captain.”

“If there’s anything you need, Rachel, let me know. I’m taking appointments again, too.” Deanna took a step to give the baby to her mother, but glanced at Jean-Luc. “Would you like to hold her, Captain?”

He gave her a brief pleading look, but his eyes went to the baby, and a puzzled wrinkle appeared over his nose. Surprise radiated from everyone else present, when he actually came forward and took the child. He stared down at the tiny squashed face with an unreadable expression. 

“It’s all right, you know,” Deanna said, suppressing a grin. 

“All right?” Jean-Luc passed the baby to Rachel slowly.

“Parents all look at babies as perfect, but it’s all right to not see what they see.”

Beverly sighed. “Felicity is a beautiful baby, regardless.”

“Of course she is.” Jean-Luc shot Rachel a reserved smile. “Your husband is in operations, is he not?”

“Yes, sir. He’s taking some time off to be with us. He should be here any minute, to take us home.”

“Good, good. Carry on.” He headed out of sickbay for lack of anything else to say. Rachel watched him go with some bemusement. 

“It’s all right, Rachel, he’s not been around small children very much.” Beverly smiled and picked up the bag sitting on the floor near Rachel’s feet. 

Deanna lingered until Jorge arrived, and while the new mother was busy greeting her husband with the doctor and nurse hovering to make sure they took Beverly’s usual maternal care package with them as they left, she slipped out of sickbay. 

Once in her office, she found that time flew by -- three appointments came and went in short order. Giles checked in to let her know he no longer needed her services, and then Ro came by, not as a client but to chat about a few things, such as why Captain Ren had contacted her. She hadn’t filed a complaint yet. Deanna had to explain that she had forwarded video footage of their visit. Her third appointment, a nervous ensign trying to decide whether or not to propose to his girlfriend, a fellow ensign from engineering, dithered for an hour wondering what to do and went on his way.

She decided to change out of uniform for the afternoon, as she expected to be spending it with Jean-Luc, so headed for their quarters without a thought. As she came in, two heads turned -- well, she had set up the occasion, why be surprised that Jason was there with him for lunch?

“Hello,” she exclaimed, veering right without hesitation and leaving Jean-Luc to deal with Jason’s surprise. 

She took her time deciding what to wear, as she could sense the two were still talking seriously about something. Black pants, white blouse, and then she let her hair down around her shoulders, brushing it out a little. Finally she exited to the living room and settled on the couch, reaching for a padd she had left there. 

“Well, I guess you’re right,” Jason said. He had glanced at her and then gone back to the conversation in progress. “But I wonder if Mom ever thought about it. She always told us never to run from problems.”

“At some point we all have to decide whether to run or to confront. Sometimes when the problem is intractable disagreements with someone, and the other person shows no signs of even moving toward compromise, you can find yourself locked in endless struggle with no hope of breaking the cycle.”

Jason paused. Deanna could sense the hesitation, the awareness of her there, his feeling awkward -- but he was nodding, she saw out of the corner of her eye. “Yeah. So how long will it take, to get back to Camor?”

“Three days. We’ll pick up your friends. Once at a starbase you should have no difficulties getting from there to wherever you decide to go.”

“Okay. Thanks. I’ll stay out of trouble, I promise,” he said, feeling moderately embarrassed. “I’ll… just get going. Get out of your way.”

Once he was gone, Jean-Luc left the table, and sat with her on the couch. “You didn’t tell him about you and I, I gather.”

“It should be enough for a woman to tell someone she does not appreciate their attention. I shouldn’t have to say anything about other relationships.”

“Of course not.” He glanced at the padd, but didn’t ask. “Did you have lunch?”

“I’ll get something to drink in a moment. What do you think of this?” She passed the padd to him, and he studied the image with interest.

“This as a wedding dress? For you?” He looked up at her with a lopsided smile. “I’m no expert, but… I think wedding dresses are a little like babies. It’s a matter of subjective taste.”

“I hope you didn’t think I was trying to embarrass you, handing you the baby.”

“Oh, not at all. I wasn’t ready for it, that’s all. Although it is less intimidating than it used to be. You always told me that it would be easier than I thought it was, handling children, and as usual you have proved to be correct.” He considered the padd again, and without thinking swiped his finger across the bottom -- the image changed, as she had been thumbing through a series of wedding dresses in the database. He stared anew and his smirk turned into a full-fledged smile.

“You like that one better?” She moved closer, settling into the curve of his arm as he put it around her automatically. “That’s -- frothy.” It was subjective, of course, and no doubt there were plenty of people who liked dresses that could stand up without an occupant, by dint of the sheer number of layers of lace and frippery. 

“It’s not your style. This,” he said, holding up the next image for her to see, “is more the thing, do you think?”

“At least it would be obvious there’s a woman under it. I think a gown is still my preference, rather than a mini-skirt.”

While he flipped through the next few, she went to get a drink, and returned with a tall glass of replicated pale ale. He glanced at it quizzically. 

“I don’t drink beer during the poker games. It doesn’t mean I don’t like it,” she commented, sipping. 

“Here,” he said, passing the padd back to her. He had left it on a picture of a simple white gown. Strapless, form-fitting, the model in the image wearing a spray of flowers at the right shoulder and showing a moderate amount of calf through a slit down the left side of the skirt. 

“Okay. I’ll give it a try.” She pressed a few controls and put the padd aside on the table, along with the beer. She came back from the replicator with the dress, holding it up to herself. “I suppose I should try it on.”

He stared at her open-mouthed. “Perhaps you should.”

“Don’t go anywhere.” She grinned and hurried into the bedroom. It was, she reflected, past time to get a full length mirror, as she tried to see herself in the small mirror over the dressing table. She piled her hair up in a loose, untidy inverse Picard just for the fun of it. She danced out on her tiptoes and approached him slowly.

“Oh,” he managed softly -- he’d picked up her beer to take a sip, and put it down again slowly. “Deanna.”

“Does that mean it’s acceptable?” Deanna sidled over and reached with her left foot, rubbing her toes up his calf. 

“Oh my god,” he said with a grin. “You’re killing me.”

She grinned back at him. “Should I try another? Or perhaps I should wear a different one to bed each night, see which one you tear off with the most zeal?”

He deflected it with a raised hand. “Deanna, come here, please.”

Giving the skirt a yank, she sat down, put the balls of her feet on the edge of the table, and leaned back on the couch, looking up at him with lazy eyes and a smile. He shook his head, staring down at her as she wiggled her toes and nudged him with her elbow. He groaned and let his head hang. There were times he struggled with words, and amidst the attraction and affection and the rest of it he ran up against that inability to label his feelings again.

“What is it, tell me,” she murmured. “Come on.”

“Sometimes I wish…. It could have been normal, you know?”

“What?”

He leaned back with her, against the back of the couch, and put his boots on the edge of the table. Mirroring her posture. “Us. I could come in and see you there, at the bar -- say something, get a smile. Talk to you about everything and anything.”

“But you wouldn’t dance with me. I’d flirt with you, madly, and try to get you to, and you’d be so torn.” Deanna ran a finger down his sleeve, and leaned a little toward him to whisper. “And then you would give in, just to get your hands on me.”

“We’re designing a holodeck simulation,” he said. 

“Then why don’t we go to the holodeck?”

He found that idea appealing enough, though he still had mixed feelings. “And run into each other at a bar, as if we don’t know each other?”

“I’ve wondered what you must be like, just meeting you the first time, without rank or counseling between us.”

“Well, then. I suppose we could change the simulation as needed, if we decided to opt out of it.”

Deanna went to change into a different dress and get a robe, leaving her hair piled up on her head. They ran into no one on the way to the closest holodeck. In the lift, he played with some of the loose curls she’d left hanging around her face. She gave him a flirtatious look, a saucy head tilt, and he backed away from her a little. 

“Not in lifts.”

“I think we should go to Diamond Dogs,” she said as they entered holodeck four. 

“That’s an expensive place.” But he loaded it and the dimly-lit restaurant coalesced around them, complete with patrons and a typically-haughty waiter approaching.

“Captain, would you care to be seated?”

“I’ll just be in the bar, handsome stranger,” Deanna said, sauntering away from him. 

She dodged into the women’s restroom, dropped the robe on the floor, and asked the computer for a pair of high heels to go with the dress, and some dangling, shining earrings. She posed in front of the full-length mirror -- the little black dress, classic as it was, still did its job. Mid-thigh hem, strapless, form-fitting and with the addition of the heels her legs looked longer than they were. The computer provided upon request the burgundy lipstick she favored when wearing black.

It was a very good program -- someone must have taken extra time to make it accurate, she thought as she made her way through the dining area to the bar at the back of the restaurant. It was crowded, and some of the holographic patrons tracked her slow progress to one of the tall seats at the end of the bar. There were women here and there, being predatory, and men reciprocating. She settled on the last bar stool, glanced out the window at the view -- the restaurant was on a hilltop overlooking the city -- and turned as the bartender strolled over.

“I’d like a Rainbow Rum,” she ordered, and the large, swarthy bartender went about it, shaking up and decanting the drink in the requisite tall frosty glass. A man sidled up to her -- it surprised her, as usually the holograms in bar programs were less aggressive than that. 

“No,” she said before he could speak, taking a small sip of the sweet confection full of rum. 

“Honey,” the hologram oozed. “Let’s dance.”

The dance floor was around the corner from the bar, and as she gave him a frustrated glare the music started. Typically, Diamond Dogs had the more sedate kind of dancing. She heard a waltz start. “No.”

“I’ll buy you dinner,” the hologram said suggestively. He reminded her of Chief O’Brien with dark hair. 

“I think she’d like to be left alone,” a familiar voice said. 

She turned as the hologram did, and smiled at Jean-Luc. “Oh, look who it is, an officer,” the hologram blurted angrily.

“You should leave,” Jean-Luc said. 

The man glared and spun out of the seat, and stalked off with the glass of whiskey he’d brought with him. Jean-Luc glanced at her, and she sensed his momentary struggle with the scenario. His surprise at the dress -- his appreciation, of her presentation.

“Thank you,” she said warmly. “Sometimes the drunk ones don’t know how to take no for an answer.”

“Not a problem.” He smiled then, and glanced around. “Do you mind if I sit here? It’s crowded tonight.”

“I don’t mind. Especially if it keeps the riffraff away.”

He smirked as he slid into the seat. “What are you going to do if I turn out to be riffraff?”

“I suppose I’ll have to find another bar,” she said, picking up her rum. 

“That would be a shame. You were the only reason I came in here.”

Deanna gave him a mock scowl. “Starfleet knows you’re out loose saving damsels in distress?”

“They’re paying me to save damsels, and plenty of other people. But something tells me you could have saved yourself.”

“But the minute a lady reveals that she has a black belt, she has no chance at all at finding someone to dance with.” Deanna frowned at her glass. “This isn’t nearly enough rum -- it’s all sugar. Please remake this?” She shoved it at the bartender, who took it and gave her skeptical look.

“So you’re here to dance, are you?” He picked up the glass of porter the bartender had put in front of him.

“I thought after I had a little to drink, I’d be up to it, yes. You are on leave?”

“Not exactly. At Command, having meetings all day. I thought I would come out for the evening.”

“All by yourself,” she said, giving him a look of appraisal. “Or is she waiting for you?”

He turned from contemplation of his drink, to gaze at her with a hint of indignation. “No one is waiting for me.”

Deanna smiled at it, as if that was good to hear. “Then we have plenty of time to talk.”

“Indeed.”

“I have been thinking about relationships, today. Being introspective. Also, the direction my career is taking. I have similar obligations to yours-- not that I’m a starship captain, but I do have a uniform at home, waiting for me to come back from the few days I’m taking off.” She smiled sadly at him, thinking about how close to home it was -- she had been trying not to worry about career, throughout. 

“Are you perhaps regretting? That’s a sad face, for such a lovely woman.”

“No more regrets than usual. I suppose the alcohol is having its usual effect.” Deanna leaned a little, until she sensed that her proximity affected him. “Not why I came, either. I intended to have some fun.”

He smiled at that, pivoting the chair a few inches to face her, more or less, and lean an elbow on the edge of the bar. His hand went to her face -- he touched a curl, pulled it gently and then let his hand drop.

“Do you like dancing?” She leaned a little more, aware that her dress might actually slide off her breasts if she went just a few inches farther. 

“No,” he said, but he smiled, enjoying the show. “Are you using your Betazoid mind magic on me?”

She gave him a smug smile. “Perhaps.”

He must have finally noticed the movement -- his gaze dropped, to her thigh, where she was letting her fingers glide along her skin, back and forth, gentle and slow. Since he had noticed, and continued to watch, she let them bridge the gap between their knees and start to travel up the inseam of his pants. 

“Not shy, are you? We haven’t even exchanged names,” he said quietly, sitting quite still.

“I know who you are. Do you want my name?”

“I’d prefer to know you a little better, yes. Before you have your hand in my pants.”

Huffing a little, she sat back and picked up her rum, to take a long drink of it. “Deanna.”

“You seem to like my uniform.”

“It’s a nice enough uniform, but it isn’t the main attraction for me,” she said, her eyes flicking up and down. “Betazoid, you know. I find that I am drawn more to intangibles. Certain… qualities.”

“You like me for my mind,” he said in a wry tone, with a smirk. 

“I’m sure that’s excellent, so far as it goes. There’s far more to you than that.”

“What about you? Does anyone look beyond the little black dress?”

Deanna locked eyes with him, for a few moments, and almost broke -- it wasn’t as though either of them were faking anything, but they were obviously pretending not to know each other, and setting things aside was becoming difficult. 

“Have you had enough to be interested in dancing?”

She smiled again, glancing down at his glass. “I have. What about you? You don’t like dancing.”

“To be fair, I haven’t really done a lot of it. I haven’t tried in years.”

Giving him a sly look, Deanna twisted in the chair and stood up, and with a tug to pull down the skirt, led the way out of the bar. He followed her closely around the corner to the dance floor, which was in its own room separate from the restaurant. A string of lights ringed the room at floor level. At the moment there were people swaying slowly together to a mellow love song. 

Deanna looked at him, standing next to her, and wondered why the prospect of dancing with someone was so anxiety-provoking for him. She touched his hand, and the smile he responded with was fleeting.

“Let’s dance,” he said.

She stepped in front of him and kissed him, her hands resting on his chest. He was surprised, at first, but leaned to re-establish contact when she broke off, his hand going to her waist as he slipped his tongue between her lips. While he was thus engaged, she took his right hand in hers, and backed a step. By the time the kiss ended he had followed her out on the floor.

“Do you come back to Earth often?” she murmured, looking him in the face, trying to keep his attention. 

He blinked. But his feet moved with hers. “Not really, no. I haven’t had much incentive to return, frankly.”

“But if there were someone you missed, you might,” she half-asked. 

“Are you stationed here?”

“I was on a small vessel, for a while. After a promotion I transferred here for a temporary posting -- I was considering a transfer to another vessel, but I’m not certain I want to be in space. I’m an empath. It’s easier on a planet, for me.”

He contemplated this as they continued to gently sway together across the floor. As they had been programmed to do, the holographic people around them conveniently stayed out of the way. “It is?”

“The more minds surrounding me, the more diffuse the emotional atmosphere is -- fewer minds have more focused emotions, less static.”

“Really. An empath,” he echoed, as if hearing it for the first time. “So, just emotions. You know how everyone feels about you.”

“And everyone else around, too. You like my legs.”

Finally, a smile returned, tipping the ends of his mouth upward. “Indeed I do.”

“My smile. And my eyes.” 

His hand slipped from her waist to conform to her left buttock, guiding her closer. “Anything else?”

“Would you like to know what I like?”

His head tilted quizzically. “You like to dance.”

“I like your chest. Strong arms. I like the way you kiss me, as if you’re inviting me to join you.” She beamed at him, sending waves of affection to him, leaning to press herself against him. Not mentioning that he was moving with more confidence than before. “I like dancing with someone who joins me, focuses on me, especially if it makes the rest of the world go away.”

“For an empath… it must be difficult, to find someone you really feel at home with,” he mused.

The song ended. People left the dance floor but Deanna stopped and waited, leaving her arms in place. Jean-Luc did the same. As the next song, a waltz, began he hesitated, glancing back and forth, but she squeezed his hand and smiled, and lead them off. She smiled up at his face as she stepped in time to the music, and let him stumble a little through it. 

Humming with the tune, she waltzed with him and radiated happiness, enjoying being with him, ignoring the brief moments of anxiety-induced clumsiness. 

“The thing about dancing,” she said as the song ended and she led him off the floor, “is that expertise doesn’t matter. Just dancing with someone for the joy of it requires no talent whatsoever. Dancing can be an expression of joy, or attraction, or even longing.”

“Yes,” he said in a clipped tone.

She turned to him, hesitating in the door, to meet his gaze. Obviously he had been embarrassed at some point, on a dance floor. She smiled fondly and caressed his cheek, and kissed him again. “Buy me a drink?”

Their drinks were still sitting at the end of the bar, but he ordered new ones, and the bartender took away the glasses and returned with two beers. 

“What you were saying before, about choosing a posting,” he said. “If you were offered a position, on my ship?”

“Are you suggesting that I should follow you into deep space on the basis of a single meeting?”

He smirked, giving a little shrug. “You convinced me to dance with you. I’m pretty sure you could convince me to give you a job.”

“Oh, you’re really so easy?”

“No… I have a good idea that you’re the kind of officer I’m looking for. And as I said, you’d have to convince me.”

“I would have to prove that I was motivated. Makes sense.”

Deanna half-turned her bar stool toward him, not really thinking about it, sipping beer. She put the glass down and they sat looking at each other. And then she touched her own thigh again, swinging her legs open a little more. He didn’t seem to notice, looked into her eyes steadily, and then she felt the light touch of a fingertip on the inside of her thigh, and she smiled at him puckishly. 

“You want to know me better before taking off your pants, but no problem with that?”

“Perhaps it’s just habit. Exploration is what we do in Starfleet,” he said smugly. 

“I see. So what else do you need to know, about me?” She began the lean again, and swung her knees wide. She knew what would happen -- he glanced down, and froze for a few seconds. 

“What -- “ He gaped, and finally dragged his eyes up. “This is what you would do?”

“Not at all. Not even on Betazed -- I simply thought underwear might get in the way at some point.”

He came off the bar stool toward her, his hands on her thighs, and stopped short of pulling her down to him -- he looked down again, dragging her short skirt higher. “So much for talking?” He had such excellent restraint, hovering with his face just at the neckline of the dress, feeling that much desire. 

“If you’d like to return to the scenario we can do that. But I really do feel a need to be touched, by you, and this is very difficult for me -- none of these people are real, and you’re so very close,” she whispered. “Oh!”

His finger slipped along her labia, and the musky smell of her own arousal was quite obvious. 

“Computer, delete all characters from the simulation,” he muttered, and all the chatter and noise vanished, leaving only the music playing in the distance. 

“Oh,” she gasped again. He caressed that soft skin of her inner thighs, and touched her labia again, starting to circle slowly around and around, gliding up to tease her clitoris. 

“Just once, and we’ll find somewhere more comfortable,” he said as he tugged the dress down a little, until her nipple popped out. He took it in his mouth as his left arm went around her waist -- he leaned a little on her thigh, keeping her in the chair, and two of his fingers went inside finally. 

Deanna felt herself clench around them out of reflex and her hands went to his head, as he suckled and rolled his fingers around, pulling them out slightly only to push them in again. She felt it, when the growing connection between them snapped wide open, and in addition to sensing his desire she could tell that he recognized hers. Last night had been incredible enough -- this was something else, an amplification of what had come before. She closed her eyes and surrendered to being overwhelmed by him.

When she opened them again, she found that things were very different now -- she wasn’t at a bar any longer, and in fact the holodeck was back to just the yellow-on-black grid, except for the large green upholstered sofa she was reclining on. As she regained her senses and the tingling faded, she sat up, feeling light-headed. 

Jean-Luc was still in his uniform, sitting in front of her, watching her -- not touching her, she noticed.

“What did you do?” She took stock -- the dress was in a heap on the floor, and near it was the robe. “Jean-Luc?”

“You don’t remember?”

“I do, but I don’t. It felt so good. You felt -- but you’re not -- “

He shifted a little, and then her sense of him started to return, as the lightheadedness abated. He was still aroused, flushed and slightly out of breath.

She was in motion without thinking about it, reaching for him -- his erection was obvious, his eagerness to help her help him out of the uniform resulting in awkward fumbling. She wondered how she had gotten to the state of passion she’d reached without his full participation, but didn’t care at the moment. Jacket gone, shirt gone, he shoved his pants down as she sprawled backward on the couch again, and he crawled up between her knees to give her what she wanted. 

There was no question in her mind that she had underestimated this. Even though she felt everything he did, and echoes of it all rippled back and forth between them, just as it had before, there was something else going on. 

“Different,” he said, as he brought his mouth to hers. She agreed, happily, twisting her hips as she moved with him. It took such a short time, for him to find release. And he kissed her again, going from urgent to affectionate, loving her in his single-minded and focused way. 

“I can’t quite feel that it was a failure, somehow,” Deanna mumbled, grinning, holding his sweaty body where he’d fallen against her. 

“The original goal was perhaps beyond our ability -- this isn’t quite what we discussed. But I think the absence of disappointment is mutual.” He chuckled in her ear.

“Tell me what happened, between when you put your fingers in and when I asked what you did.”

It sobered him somewhat, that she couldn’t remember. Still wrapped around her, he shifted slightly left to put his weight on his hip, and tucked his arms around her waist. “You were a little… involved. I had to change the venue or we would have tipped over to the floor. I’ve never known anyone with such enthusiasm and energy, when it comes to sex.”

“You weren’t inside me, when it happened this time. With me, connected, but not as stimulated as me, but it was still that intense. It’s a little alarming, Jean-Luc.”

He chuckled again, pressing his lips to the base of her throat. “I refuse to be alarmed. Nothing you predicted has been true.”

“What?” She scowled a little, realizing that her hair was in complete disarray. 

“You said your life was complicated, and things with Alexander would be so difficult. You were terrified that I would find it so difficult that I would leave. All that anxiety and it’s only been external problems, like work and Riker’s behavior, that have been any issue at all.”

Deanna sighed, wriggled slightly, and kissed his forehead, which was all that she could reach with him wrapped around her as he was. “I should apologize, it seems I’ve subjected you to the trauma of all my past failed relationships.”

“I can forgive you easily enough. I love you, Deanna.”

“Can you forgive me for reminding you we have two children to pick up from school shortly?”

That got him moving, as he reluctantly bowed to the necessity. A request to the computer brought a replicator into being, from which they acquired uniforms. She left her hair down and noticed his attention focused on it. 

“You’ve never been so interested in my hair before.”

“I’ve never let myself be interested in you, before, have I?”

She followed him to the nearest lift. “Not until you were interested, no.”

He hesitated on the threshold, in the open turbolift door, and turned to look at her. His happy grin was not a surprise -- they were still quite connected, and riding along on a strong sense of mutual satisfaction. 

“I’ve learned a lot,” he said as she joined him in the door. “How to appreciate what I’ve always ignored. How important -- “

He lost the words, in an unexpected surge of regret and sadness. Deanna touched his shoulder, waiting, but he shook his head, frowning. 

“Let’s go get the kids. We should do something fun with them, I think. Don’t you?”

“Yes,” he gasped, breaking through it. “I’m sure Alexander has plenty of ideas about that.”

On the way to the school, she thought about the course of his life, the counseling sessions he’d had, the captain she had known and all the ways he had changed and grown. She walked with him from the lift, down the corridor toward the school.

“You were going to say you learned how important the little things are, in life,” she said. It gave him pause -- he slowed down and gave her a look of awe. She smiled at him. “I think you may understand that they aren’t really little things. That all of the models you build with Alexander aren’t little, to him, and that you were willing to dance with me isn’t little to me.”

He wanted to say something -- opened his mouth, to say it, but closed it again with a sigh. 

“Normal is what we decide it is, Jean-Luc.” Deanna patted his arm and started for the door -- it opened and children started to come out, as he followed her. Rene ran at them, followed by Alexander. 

“Uncle,” Rene exclaimed as he took Deanna’s hand and beamed up at them. “Alexander said we can go sailing?”

“I suppose we could,” Jean-Luc managed. 

“Only if Mom comes this time,” Alexander exclaimed, crossing his arms and giving her a stern look. 

“Well, if I’m required, we should include a doctor,” Deanna said. “So I’m inviting Dr. Crusher along.”

“We’re going to need a bigger boat,” Jean-Luc said. He turned back toward the lift, and Alexander strode forward to walk with him -- Deanna noticed that Jean-Luc’s hand went to the boy’s shoulder without hesitation or real thought, and she smiled, then turned her attention to Rene.

“Have you been sailing before? We might need something for motion sickness, I know I do….”


	39. The End of an Era at the Middle of the Story

Deanna followed her co-workers to the top of the hill, slowly. The arid environment was the opposite of comfortable -- her lungs felt seared, her feet weighed a ton. Her skin felt parched and filthy. 

She looked up, at the silhouette of the edge of the saucer section, overhead. 

This wasn’t the way this was supposed to go.

A week and a half, of normal life. Laughter with the kids, in the mornings and late in the day when they came home from school. Jean-Luc attentively dedicated a portion of his time to her, helping her see that this really wasn’t anything like what she experienced before, and confirming for her that this choice was the right one, that she could finally let herself feel settled. They had taken Jason and his fellow orphans to a starbase and sent them their way with new confidence that their future could be worthwhile. Deanna had spent more time with Ro, who had returned to the helm, and with Mike and Leila, Data, and Beverly. Jean-Luc had showed her how to ride English, and she had demonstrated, for him and for Alexander’s class, the Western style -- not to mention how the quarter horse of the American West could cut cattle and turn on a dime.

And then the distress call from the Amargosa observatory, and events cascaded forward -- Geordi had been captured, and Jean-Luc didn’t hesitate to substitute himself as the Be’tor sisters’ captive. The warp core had been damaged in the battle, the ship separated, the saucer caught in the shock wave from the core breach had been propelled to the planet’s surface. 

She had been on the bridge -- Data giving orders, Ro at the helm, everything played out as she watched. Then the descent -- the impact. The horrible, unimaginable sound of millions of tons of metal striking the ground. The shattering dome raining down on the bridge. Being unable to hear -- her senses had been so overwhelmed that she heard only ringing in her ears for a while. Selar and a nurse had arrived, assessed, treated, and things had improved -- she could hear again. But what she heard from then on was so dire. 

Events had tumbled along around her, as she had struggled to understand what she sensed, especially from him. There had been a moment of anguish, just as the distress signal from Amargosa had come in, that she was certain had nothing to do with the situation. But he focused on the distress call, on finding and stopping Soran from destroying the system in his mad attempt to return to the Nexus. 

Talking to Guinan briefly had done little to help. Knowing that Soran wanted to return to some spatial phenomenon that existed beyond time only illuminated enough of what was going on to understand that Jean-Luc’s complete absence from the vicinity of Veridian likely meant he had gone wherever Soran had. She toiled alongside her crewmates, pulling officers from the wreckage, and finding battered and bruised people along with some severely injured who had been in sections where the hull buckled or viewports shattered had consumed hours -- she had lost track. The long Veridian day drew out and there were nearly a thousand people to account for. 

“You okay?” Mike asked, turning to her. It was actually the first time he had asked. They had been working their way around the perimeter of the grounded saucer, and in front of them several lieutenants were opening a hatch.

“Tired. Numb.”

Mike bit his lower lip. Like the rest of them, his uniform was covered in pale ochre dust. “Have you sensed the captain at all?”

She grimaced and stomped forward as a ladder dropped from the hatch over their heads. 

The interior was dark, but hand lamps swung about as they made their excruciatingly-slow way through corridors and Jeffries tubes. Most of the crew had made it out of the saucer section on their own, but there were a minority still trapped, after the departmental head counts were done. Nearly a dozen people had been freed so far -- she sensed them, fearful and sometimes in pain, and Mike and the others used the hand tools they brought to pull open doors frozen by the loss of power and computer control. The deck was slanted steeply so at times this was an exercise in scrambling around to brace against things. 

Finally, the school. When the door opened she lunged and dropped through first, startling her companions. Everyone was gathered against the lowest point, the corner at the bottom of the slanted floor, sitting on piles of desks and shelving that had been their school. 

“Mom! Mom!” Alexander leaped to her, and then she was mobbed by children, all crying and wailing, terrified. She held them, touched them, crying herself, checking them all -- a few broken bones. She coached them into the arms of her fellow officers who pulled them one by one out of the dark room, and finally the last child, Rene with his traumatized tears and a broken leg that had been stuck in his desk, was extricated. She started to shove aside furniture and call for the teacher, Carla.

Hand phasers were carefully used to cut away desks and chairs and shelves until she was visible -- she was barely conscious, and moaned a little as more pieces of furniture were pulled off. Deanna touched her head.

“Come on, we’ll get her,” Mike said, offering a hand. “Go with the kids. Get ‘em to the doc. There’s a back board on the way in.”

Deanna let herself be dragged upward again, and went after the kids, collected in the slanting corridor. She and Lieutenant Twitchell herded them to the hatch, down the ladder, and walked them to the makeshift open-air sickbay in a grove of trees downslope from the saucer section. Other crew were pulling out medical tools from the bowels of deck twelve, what was left of it -- anything with a battery that worked, medicines, whatever could be salvaged -- and Beverly and her staff were doing everything they could to stabilize and treat. As she kept up a litany of reassurance and encouragement, Deanna picked up Ingabo and held the too-big-to-hold child tightly, carried him toward the doctors and nurses. 

She sat on a large rock against the trunk of the tree after the medical staff swept the kids off to be checked, treated, given water and food, and closed her eyes. 

“Here, Mom,” Alexander exclaimed, stirring her from the nap. She came awake and realized she’d fallen asleep -- and as she smiled, accepting his coming to sit with her, handing her a tumbler of water, letting him nestle up against her for comfort, she inhaled sharply.

It was as though color had returned -- color and light and air, and she cried again. He was back. Anxious and in that heightened state of focus that said he was in mission mode. She hugged Alexander and smiled joyfully. He was alive.

“Deanna?”

She stared up at Beverly’s face, short red hair flying away, smudges on her cheek, about to hand Deanna some of the protein bars they were passing out to keep everyone functional. Her blue eyes had hope in them.

“He’s all right,” she whispered, turning to Alexander. Her little tiger grinned. 

“Rene’s having his leg repaired -- when Selar’s done he’ll come sit with you. You should stay here with the kids, now that we’ve found them. Can you hold the baby?”

And so she found herself soothing a crying baby, while the other children crowded around her, taking turns crying and asking for their family. Parents showed up here and there to join them, to hug their sons and daughters. Deanna cuddled Felicity Timmons and watched the sky. 

The first shuttle arrived an hour later. A cheer went up, from the assembled crew on the ground -- Beverly stepped away from a makeshift bed thrown together from a table and some chair cushions, and put her hands to her head, smiling, eyes closed, her blue lab coat flapping behind her in the breeze. And then Data arrived -- striding through to order them all to start preparing for evacuation, as the _Farragut_ and _Timor_ had arrived to begin the recovery effort.

Deanna stayed in the small patch of shade and watched another shuttle enter the atmosphere, watched the crew start to mobilize, with Rene and Alexander leaning against her, both boys actually napping now. Rachel had been found, and sat nearby soothing her baby. Shuttles arrived and landed on the flat beyond the trees, and officers were setting up beamout points, designating them with orange markers, starting to organize the evacuation of the injured first. 

And then he was there. Finally.

She wasn’t surprised. She’d sensed his approach -- the grieving process had started. Jean-Luc had been injured, as well, clearly been fighting hand to hand from the bruising to his face and torn and filthy uniform. He stared down at them, standing over them like a statue. Relief was foremost, as he stood there, and then the sadness and angst returned. 

“Captain,” she said, trying to smile. It activated the kids. Both boys woke and leaped to throw their arms around his waist. He knelt, and exchanged a real embrace with each, a long one, and Ogawa came over as he held Rene away from him and smiled reassuringly at him. 

“Time to go,” Ogawa said, gesturing. “Sir, the captain of the _Farragut_ has been asking after you. There’s a shuttle over here, Counselor, if you and the kids are ready to go. They’re taking children first.”

And so Deanna didn’t get to hold him, ask him what happened -- he cast her a regretful look and turned, as Data and the captain the nurse mentioned approached, and she took the boys to the shuttle.

By the time some member of the _Farragut_ crew took them from the shuttle bay to guest quarters, Deanna knew it would take a while to recover from this. The boys were as exhausted as she, and the counselor part of her brain reeled at the thought of how much trauma all her crewmates and friends had suffered, how the children would be having nightmares -- the ship, their home, was gone. The star drive destroyed, the saucer would never rise from the planet’s surface. Stray thoughts started to wend their way into her mind -- how lucky they were that the planet had a breathable atmosphere, how fortunate that the saucer hadn’t disintegrated on impact. Starships like the _Enterprise_ were intended to live out their useful lives in space. 

At her urging, Alexander had a plate of spaghetti, and Rene listlessly ate soup she gave him with constant encouragement. She had been given quarters smaller than her old suite, but there was a separate bedroom for the children. She lay down with them on the small bed, the three of them crowded there but both boys fell asleep at once and didn’t wake when she extricated herself and went to fall on the bed in the other bedroom. 

She woke later -- unsure of the passage of time, she glanced at the night stand, at the chronometer. Twenty-two hundred hours, and fifty-four minutes. Thirst drove her out to the replicator. She drank water until she couldn’t, and then went back to the bedroom, to the bathroom. 

Deanna had a hot tub of water filled and was adding bath salts, intending to soak away grime she had been too tired to deal with, when she realized he was looking for her. She stepped into the water, sank down into it, started to wash -- tears started then. Crying while she leaned back, her cheek on the padded head rest, she drew up her knees and hugged them as if she were a small child. 

Jean-Luc arrived -- he looked down at her, and she gazed up at him through her eyelashes, trying to smile. He had been in sickbay -- the bruises and abrasions were gone, the uniform clean and new -- but he too was tired beyond words. He perched on the edge of the tub, leaned down, touched her face, bending to kiss her on the lips. 

“Jean-Luc.”

“Can I persuade you to come to bed?”

She nodded, and as she got up he took her arm to help her out, pulling over a towel from the rack. Then he had her in his arms, wrapped in the towel, and they stood that way together for a while. 

“She’s gone,” he said at last, softly. She knew he meant the ship.

“You know what happened?”

“Yes, Data told me everything. He and Beverly said that you were instrumental in finding those who were injured in the crash.”

“You were gone. Completely gone. All I could think about was the children. I had to find Rene and Alexander. I couldn’t think about -- “ A sob caught in her throat.

“I was in the Nexus, for a while, and then I came back in time -- I had to get back to before he destroyed the star -- it destroyed the system. Everyone in it. And when we found Soran and stopped the launch, it -- “ It was too recent, too fresh. He couldn’t really say it yet.

She started to move then, to rub the towel over her hair. “Let’s go to bed.”

Something about the normalcy of the process of doing that helped ground him. Once they were in bed, he told her the incredible story of the place where time didn’t exist, finding Kirk, seeing Kirk die trying to save the inhabitants of the planet and their crew. Burying him up on the mountain where he had fallen. But there were emotions present as he spoke that she didn’t understand -- he wasn’t telling her everything.

“Jean-Luc, what are you not telling me?”

A long pause, while he held her in his arms, and she lay with her cheek to his chest and her arms draped over his shoulders, her hands beneath his head. 

“At first I didn’t realize where I was,” he said slowly. “The Nexus is powerful -- it feeds you a reality that you most desire, gives you whatever you yearn to have, and so when we were initially pulled in, I came to in a situation that I imagined.”

“Guinan explained that much to me. She felt strongly that once you were there, you wouldn’t want to come back.”

He felt a tired sort of amusement and gratitude, and he sighed loudly. “There was a house. Children. Beautiful children, calling me father, smiling at me -- and then you arrived, and I knew it wasn’t really you.”

“How?”

“I’m not certain I can explain. She felt wrong. Empty-eyed, just off somehow, not -- she was like you, but more like you as a counselor. There wasn’t the edge, the sarcasm, and when she….”

From the embarrassment, she thought she could guess. “Fantasizing about me isn’t cheating, you know.”

“It wasn’t like a fantasy at first. But when -- it wasn’t the same. She wasn’t connecting to me, that’s why it felt off. I think there’s something there between us, all the time, and it was missing while I was in the Nexus. And then I was determined to find a way back out of it, because it started to feel wrong. I stumbled across Kirk -- he had just arrived there. I talked him into helping me save Veridian and the crew.”

She smiled and enjoyed his fingers in her hair, and felt as buoyant as usual while he was loving her. “What were the children like?”

“They all had your hair. Your smile.”

“All?”

He felt a sort of internal wince. “There were five of them. Two, four, five, seven and nine years old, and you were… pregnant.”

“If you’re half as active in reality as you are in your dreams, it’s going to be a really interesting marriage,” she said with a grin. 

“Deanna,” he protested. He didn’t want to laugh about anything yet. “Are you all right? Are the boys all right?”

“It’s going to be a long road back, for us,” she said. “Rene was so terrified, Jean-Luc. And when I close my eyes, I can see the viewscreen -- the ground rushing up at us. I can hear the impact. I was thrown across the bridge, we all were. Selar healed the bruising and the fracture with a regenerator but I can remember the pain. Everyone’s pain -- Carla broke most of her ribs and her hip, nearly crushed under the school furniture. Some of the kids broke arms or legs. Rene’s leg was broken. They were trying to move to the designated area when the page told them to, but there was no time. Several officers were unlucky, being in places where the bulkheads buckled at impact. I think there were four deaths.”

“Six,” he corrected sadly. “We’re on our way to Earth, for debriefing and healing. The entire crew -- my primary occupation for a while will be letters of recommendation, I think, though I have already been informed by quite a number of the crew that they intend to follow me, if I am offered another vessel.”

Deanna felt a sense of dread, at the thought. He said it as though it was the most logical thing. Another ship -- but why would she expect him to be anything but matter of fact?

His hand brushed her hair back from her face, gently, his thumb tracing her brow. “We’ll talk about all this tomorrow. Go to sleep, Deanna. We have nothing to do but wait, and recover. The court-martial will be a formality -- it was all cut and dried, the ship was lost in battle.”

She hadn’t even thought that far ahead. But, the captain had been doing his job -- he’d probably already spoken to the admiral, in fact, and debriefed multiple officers while she had been with the children.

The next time she woke, she was on her back and feeling moderately tired, instead of completely drained. She took stock -- both the boys were still asleep, and Jean-Luc too, sleeping on his stomach with his pillow in his arms.

She woke again later, to the insistent tone of the annunciator going off every few minutes. Scowling, she realized she had no robe or clothing here, other than the discarded uniform she’d left in the bathroom floor, and was completely naked as when she had gotten in bed. A quick assessment and she recognized Beverly as their determined visitor, so she went, telling the computer to let her in.

Beverly was tired but had cleaned up and gotten a fresh uniform. She didn’t bat an eyelash at finding her nude. “How are you feeling?”

“The water buffalo brought fifty of his best friends to trample on my head,” she replied. “I’m tired. I may have been awake for a few minutes here and there. Computer, give me a robe, white, and a new uniform.” 

She pulled the clothing from the replicator, put on the robe, tucked the folded uniform under her arm for later, and then asked for food and water -- a tea tray, and assorted finger foods on a platter. 

“I’m not staying. The kids are all right?”

“Still sleeping. So is Jean-Luc.” Deanna put a slice of apple in her mouth before picking up the tray. “How are you? How is Wes?”

“Wes is having trouble with it. The _Enterprise_ was home,” she said sadly. “I’m having trouble when I let myself think about it.”

“You should go back to bed. I know you’re making rounds checking on patients, but I think you can take it easy now. I guess we have almost a week of travel ahead of us?”

Beverly nodded. “Call me when you’re better -- I’d like to get us all together when we get a bit more sleep. Maybe you can give us group therapy.”

Deanna watched her leave, then returned to the bedroom and sat up in bed drinking tea and nibbling without hunger or real interest. Jean-Luc, perhaps awakened by the smell of food, turned his head to study her with tired eyes. She fed him a grape. 

“Marry me,” he said, as she fed him another grape and sipped her tea. 

“I believe that’s been the plan for a while, hasn’t it?” She turned to pour more tea in the cup, and passed it to him as he sat up. He spent a few seconds with it under his nose, as if just the smell of Earl Grey was healing, and sipped. 

“Captain G’dan can perform the ceremony tomorrow,” he said, giving her a serious look. “Deanna, I can’t tell you how -- “ He literally couldn’t, for some reason. 

She took the cup and put it aside on the night stand, and took his hand. “I remember sensing grief, just before the distress call came in. You were in the ready room. Was that related to this? Did you change your mind because something happened?”

“The house,” he said, shaking his head. His fingers tightened around hers. “It’s gone. There was a fire. Robert and Marie were in the process of getting a house computer -- it was almost done, then a fire started. The alarms went off but the safety features weren’t done yet, the retardant wasn’t ready, and they escaped it but -- the house and half the vineyards are gone. The winery burnt down. They fled to a neighbor, and they’re at Marie’s sister’s home at the moment.”

“How horrible,” Deanna exclaimed. “I’m so sorry, Jean-Luc. But they’re safe -- thank goodness they had the alarm!”

He shook his head, and she could tell he was thinking hard. “All that family history lost. The albums -- all that’s left is what we recovered from the wreckage of the ship. Data and I went in, retrieved some things. I have some of yours. Worf’s bat’leth, for Alexander.”

“He’s going to be so distraught about all his models -- you worked so hard on some of them. So much grieving to be done.”

Jean-Luc cupped her cheek in his palm. “When I was standing on the mountain, looking down at Kirk’s grave… All I could think about was you. What could have happened. Deanna, his fantasy was so incredibly sad. There he was in his house, fixing breakfast, and talking to me, and the woman he spoke of never appeared. It was as though she was just an idea he had, and so nebulous that the Nexus couldn’t quite make her become flesh. That could have been me. And it occurred to me then that I had no idea where you were, whether you had survived the crash, and if we might not -- “

Deanna slid over and hugged him, sitting with him against the headboard under the stars at warp. “It’s all right. It isn’t you, Jean-Luc.” She thought about Marie’s words, about how lost he had seemed, and it certainly seemed true of him now.

“Tomorrow. Please?”

She couldn’t stand how his heart ached. For now, he needed comfort, and it was hardly a problem for her to agree to something she’d already agreed to do. “All right. Yes. We can always have a party later, for everyone. Even a second ceremony.”

They clung to each other for a while, and it didn’t matter whether their tears were for their lost ship, or the Picard family home, or for lost opportunities. There were plenty of reasons at the moment to cry. Thankfully, she knew, the grieving would come to an end at some point.

Just not any time soon.


	40. Shipless, Shiftless, Aimless

They started to move around and feel more normal somewhere in the middle of the following day, and Deanna replicated lunch and prompted the boys to get cleaned up and dressed. She had no real hope that they might find a holodeck -- a quick query proved that plenty of crew were recovering as they were, as all the holodecks on the _Farragut_ were full and reserved for the remainder of the day. 

While Rene and Alexander were in the bedroom putting on replicated clothing, Deanna sat next to Jean-Luc, reaching over to squeeze his arm to get his full attention. “Are you still wanting to do as you talked about last night?”

His warm smile accompanied a rush of happiness and affection. “I know it’s impulsive.”

“You’ve been through another of those experiences that shift your heart. It makes sense, in that context. Strong emotions drive people to do things that change their lives.”

He slipped into one of those ruminations he was so prone to, but continued to hold her hand, his thumb absently caressing her knuckles. He looked up at her after a few moments. “I’ve never thought about how I might meet my end. There have been times that I’ve thought it was the end -- that I would die, where I was, and leave things undone. Standing there over Kirk’s grave made me realize that it’s often the case that we never know the whole truth. Everyone in the Federation knew Kirk gave himself to save the ship and its crew, and a vessel full of refugees. But that was when he entered the Nexus. He died alone -- his friends, his family, were all gone. His son died long before.”

Deanna glanced at the door -- the boys were coming out. Alexander charged to the table. “Make sure you have some fruit, too,” she said as he sat down to his plate of waffles. Rene was less cheerful, as he sat next to Alexander and stared at his plate.

“Do we have to go to school?” Alexander asked.

“No school today, and probably not for a while. I contacted Mrs. Garcia and asked if you can go play with Bo and Bo,” Deanna said. “I know I made you breakfast, but that’s because we didn’t eat breakfast -- it’s actually lunch time. We all overslept a lot, because it was so hard to be in the crash yesterday.”

“Are they going to fix the _Enterprise_?” Rene asked.

“No, Rene,” Jean-Luc said sadly. “It’s not possible to fix it. The star drive was destroyed and the saucer is in pieces. It was fortunate that you were all safe -- I was worried, but Data took care of you all.”

“Will they give you another ship?” Alexander stuffed too big a bite in his mouth and chewed. 

“It’s possible that they might, but I have to think about it -- I could also decide to do something else. We could live on Earth, or some other world.”

Alexander stared at them, holding a forkful of forgotten waffle. “You don’t want to be a captain any more?”

Deanna sipped coffee and watched Jean-Luc trying to come up with an answer to that. “Sometimes people do that, you know,” she said casually. “I’ve thought about taking a break from Starfleet for a while. I could work as a therapist anywhere, you see. Or just do something else.”

Rene frowned at his plate and pushed at the waffles with the tines of the fork. “What would you do, Uncle? You said you wanted to be a starship captain all your life.”

Jean-Luc smiled sadly at his nephew. “Believe it or not, there was a time I thought a lot about that. The first ship I lost, I spent a lot of time evaluating what I wanted to do. Eventually they offered me the _Enterprise_. This time, I have a much harder decision to make. And I have to talk to Deanna about it, before I make it, because I don’t want to do anything that will separate us, so if they give me another ship she'll come with me, or I won't go.”

Deanna glanced at him with a smile, at that. Rene put a corner of a waffle in his mouth, his brow wrinkling as he thought about that. He reached for the orange juice. “You’re confused,” Deanna commented. 

“Papa always told me that my uncle would never have a family because he was on a ship. He thought maybe you might come home now that Uncle has you. Not be on a ship any more."

“Well, I can see why he might assume that,” Deanna said, picking up her bowl of yogurt. “It’s hard to have a ship and have a family too. Sometimes captains have families that they leave at home, while they’re gone -- but that’s almost as difficult as taking them on the ship with them, because they don’t see them for months at a time.”

“My mother didn’t want to be with my father, because he was on a starship and she didn’t want to live there,” Alexander said sadly. 

Rene blinked at Alexander. He glanced at his uncle, and back at Deanna. “Can I see my momma and papa?”

“Of course you can,” Deanna said, beaming at him. “Of course -- we’re taking you back to Earth, right now. It’s going to take a while but we’ll be there soon. And later today we’ll see if we can contact them and talk to them directly. I’ll talk to the captain about it.”

“Okay.” Rene grinned.

“We’ll go to the holodeck tomorrow,” Jean-Luc put in, smiling. “And we’ll be back to Earth before you know it.”

After the dishes were recycled, she sent them along -- the Garcias had been housed down the corridor from them. No doubt many games would be played, and the twins’ mother would be aware of Alexander’s needs and take them running or to the gym, if he became too agitated.

And so Jean-Luc sat down, on a black sofa in their guest quarters on someone else’s ship, and for the first time in years he was without anything to do -- no one to give orders to, no reports to review. Deanna wore a uniform, as he did, and they were completely at loose ends. 

“I didn’t realize Kirk had a son,” she said, going to sit next to him. She put a hand on his thigh.

“His mother raised him, apparently, and told him very little about his father. Kirk always had a reputation of being a lothario -- never settling down.” Jean-Luc seemed pensive.

“A popular thing for Starfleet officers to do. You’re thinking a lot about Kirk.”

“He was legendary, wasn’t he? All those stories -- all the accomplishments. He was held up to us cadets as an example to follow. But later on I did a little more research. Listened to some of his logs. He told me, in the Nexus, that I should never let them promote me -- that the bridge was where we made a difference.”

“It sounds like he regretted retirement. I suspect that, from what you said, he may have contemplated relationships with women, as most do, but ultimately never made the attempt at permanence.”

“He lived with Antonia for two years, in reality,” Jean-Luc said quietly. “But the Nexus never made her appear.”

Deanna pursed her lips, not saying things she would have said before. Of course, he noticed.

“You’re not telling me that I’m making attributions I can’t substantiate -- that I don’t really know why I never saw her, in the Nexus, and I’m creating my own meanings for things based in my own bias. And that’s probably true. But it doesn’t change the fact that I still want to marry you, and I’m still not certain what we’ll be doing a month from now, but I know I want to do it with you at my side regardless.”

“Do you realize that you don’t have to marry me today to make that happen?”

He started to laugh, quietly. “I know.”

“What would have been difficult for me was different. I would have felt the additional loss, of not having your child.”

He couldn’t quite look at her; he gazed at the floor at her feet. “I want to have a better grasp of my options, before we think about that.”

“That’s fine. We have a little time, at least, to explore options. And I hope that we will have time to go on vacation -- a real one. Have Alexander stay with his grandparents for a few weeks. And then we should take him to the home world, for another few weeks, to give him time with the rest of his blood relatives, before starting our own family.”

He realized something, just then, that made him very happy. “That sounds… exciting. I’m actually looking forward to time off.”

“What should we do on our vacation, do you think?”

Jean-Luc grinned. “Anything we want to.”

“Anything not on a holodeck. Riding? Swimming?”

“You are going to teach me to dance.”

“We could even start that now, if you like.”

He leaped up and bowed in an exaggerated manner. Taking his offered hand, Deanna stood and found herself being swept around the room. 

Not what she had expected…. Nor was he particularly inept, when he was paying more attention to her than the dancing. 

“Bridge to Captain Picard,” came the inevitable interruption. 

“Picard here.”

“We have an incoming transmission from Starfleet Command, sir.”

“Put it through to my quarters, please.”

Deanna sighed and sat down as he headed for the desk along the outside wall of the room, to sit and talk to whichever admiral it was that felt entitled to his time. She listened to him greet someone she’d never heard of before, Admiral Cranston, and could tell he’d never met the woman either, judging from his confusion. She wandered through platitudes, and finally got to the point after moaning a dirge about the death of the flagship. 

“I’m sure you have heard about the situation at Deep Space Nine,” she said, with the tone of someone who was certain she spoke to someone also ‘in the know.’

“Something, yes,” he replied, uncertain of what the admiral was getting at.

“We have need of experienced people in tactical operations, as you know. I heard that you might be looking for a position at Command.”

Jean-Luc cast a look across at Deanna, his eyes rolling. “Well… I’ll certainly take that into consideration, over the next few months. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.”

“Do stop in when you get back to Earth, if you have any questions. Thank you, Captain. Cranston, out.”

“I can see that I’ll have plenty of competition for your time,” Deanna commented.

“No,” he said firmly. “Oh, no. I’m going up to the bridge to explain how to screen calls.”

“See if you can start the process of contacting Robert, so Rene can talk to him.”

He marched out, and she closed her eyes. The silence was lovely. She crossed her legs in the lotus position, and started to meditate.

And, of course, that too was doomed. The annunciator went off. Deanna was tempted to tell the computer to tell them to fuck off, but considering that they were all friends, she pleasantly admitted them.

The only member of the senior staff who didn’t come through the door was Ro Llaren. Mike even had Leila with him. Data hesitated when he saw her. “You are busy.”

“I was busy. Now I have guests. How are you all?”

“Mostly recovered, I think,” Beverly replied. “They started showing up at my place asking about what’s next, and since the only one I know with direct contact with the fleet admiral lives here….”

“I just wanted to talk to someone,” Geordi said. “And I was following Data.”

“I wanted Dr. Crusher to examine Spot. She has been experiencing unusual symptoms.”

“I’m not surprised. She was trapped in wreckage for a few hours, and now she’s in a new place -- I’m sure the younger children are having similar issues. But I’m equally sure it will be temporary.” Deanna gestured around her. “Please make yourself at home -- replicate anything you like.”

Everyone settled in -- Beverly joined her on the couch, along with Mike and Leila, while Geordi and Data pulled a couple of chairs away from the dining table. Natchez hovered for a minute then sat on the very end of the couch nearest the door. 

“I suppose you’re wondering why I called you all here today,” Deanna said after a moment of odd silence. Groans were her reward. Mike grinned. “I know you’re not used to having nothing to do. It was unsettling for the captain as well, to realize that it’s over. The _Enterprise_ is gone.”

General sadness, at that, from everyone. Data excepted -- and he smiled and said, “I am certain there will be another ship by that name soon. There have been five so far, in Starfleet.”

“What do you think the chances are that we’d be on it, though?” Mike asked. He was more depressed about the situation than others in the room. 

“Do you care more about being with the captain, or with the ship?” Geordi asked.

“It’s far too soon to make decisions,” Beverly exclaimed. But she shot a speculative look at Deanna. “Isn’t it?”

“The captain is on the bridge telling them not to forward admirals offering promotions,” Deanna said.

“You see,” Geordi exclaimed.

“That doesn’t mean he won’t take one. It means he doesn’t want to spend the next week listening to them -- it’s a waste of time until after the court-martial and a survey of all his options.”

Natchez almost jumped up again. “Court-martial?”

“It is standard procedure, when a vessel is destroyed,” Data said. “An investigation is under way as we speak.”

“Are you thinking about what you want to do, Data?” Deanna smiled at him. “I’ve heard you talk about a lot of things, over the years. Starfleet isn’t the only opportunity in the world.”

“I have been considering opportunities to teach. Mr. Maddox also contacted me, when he heard about the destruction of the _Enterprise_.”

“That was fast,” Beverly exclaimed. “The news must travel at warp ten.”

The door opened, and Jean-Luc returned -- he did a visible double-take, and surveyed the room. “No one told me about a meeting.”

“Beverly was concerned that there would not be adequate time to plan for your birthday party,” Deanna said without hesitation.

He almost took the bait. After a wince, he crossed his arms and started to pace. “Are we planning for what’s next, when we return to Earth?”

“I already did a little research,” Beverly said. “There’s a number of projects running that would appreciate extra help, over in Medical. And of course there’s vacation to be had. I have a short list of beaches in the Mediterranean, waiting for me. And someone better keep me informed about wedding plans?”

“Better still, meld the two -- a beach wedding,” Leila said. She nudged Mike with her elbow. “We had a beach wedding. Coordinate it and we’ll all get the same week off at the same resort.”

Jean-Luc got a little frustrated, hearing it. Probably thinking about the period immediately after the wedding -- Deanna suspected he preferred not to vacation with other officers in his chain of command, as usual.

“One of the things I intend to do when we get to Earth will be to settle the location and date of the wedding,” Deanna said. “I suspect we will all be expected to temporarily stay in ‘fleet housing. After the court-martial there will be more clarity on what to expect from Starfleet.”

“Do you plan to take command of another vessel, if you are offered one, Captain?” Data asked, before anyone else could speak. 

Jean-Luc regarded his first officer with what appeared to be ire -- Deanna knew he was only trying to decide how much to say to his current first officer. “It depends upon the nature of the vessel, and the anticipated schedule of deployment -- it may be more suitable to our needs to remain on Earth. If you’re asking whether there will be a possibility of following me, I can’t answer that yet.”

“I guess I needed a long vacation,” Geordi said. He grinned and glanced at Data. “Want to come trekking in Nepal with me?”

“You should all take time off,” Jean-Luc said. “Because if you do come back to work for me, you’ll work your asses off.”

Fond laughter from all corners, at that. “Yes, sir,” Mike said, happy as a clam.

“I think Data is right,” Natchez put in. “I think they’ll pick a ship and there’ll be another _Enterprise_. I hope they offer it to you, sir.”

Jean-Luc smiled that familiar, sly smile. “I never would have accused Data of wishful thinking. Yet here we are.”

“I do not believe that it is wishful thinking. Starfleet would be remiss if they did not take the opportunity to keep you in command.”

“Yeah, they’d be pretty stupid not to offer him another ship,” Mike said.

“I do not see a need for redundance,” Data said.

“Mike isn’t fluent in Data yet,” Deanna said. 

“I do know one thing for sure,” Beverly exclaimed. “We need to take advantage of this situation and have a day-long poker tournament. Complete with beer, snacks, and a locked door to keep out the admirals and the riffraff.”

Deanna smirked at that. The plan unfolded, as Data delineated what needed to happen to organize it. Mike volunteered their quarters as Poker Central. She listened to the banter and started to feel weary again. 

“Out,” Jean-Luc said quietly into the conversation.

Everyone looked askance at him. 

“Poker tomorrow, or possibly every day until we reach Earth, but not today.”

Mike blinked at him, looked at Deanna, and clapped his hands once. “Yep, see you tomorrow. C’mon, Leila.”

Beverly lingered while everyone else meandered out, saying their goodbyes. “You were due for a physical, Dee. First thing in the morning in sickbay, you and I, and a biobed?”

“If you insist.”

“I shouldn’t let you get busy and put it off. Make sure you’re there, nine hundred sharp.” She slapped Deanna’s knee and stood up. “Take a nap, looks like you’re as worn out as I am. Yesterday was that tough. Wait, where are the kids?”

“With the Garcia family just down the corridor. They’re fine,” Jean-Luc said. “I’ll go get them at dinner.”

Beverly departed and left them alone, then. Jean-Luc came to her again, to sit where he’d been before.

“Now that we’re not going to be interrupted, would you like to go back to what we were talking about, or take a nap?”

Deanna settled against him with her head on his shoulder. “A little of both. What were the children’s names?”

“The -- you mean the ones in the Nexus? Why does that matter?”

“I suppose it doesn’t, but I’d like to know.”

He hesitated, and for a moment she thought he wouldn’t say, but he did. “Mimi, she was the youngest. Madison. Thomas. Olivia. I think the oldest was Mariam.”

“I wonder why your fantasy version of me liked names that start with M.” She chuckled sleepily. “You might be to blame for that, though, I suppose.”

“What names would you prefer?”

“I prefer to wait until I am looking at the child to name him.”

Jean-Luc let her snuggle up closer, and put his arm around her. “I’m finding that your approach to things tends to be less anxiety-provoking.”

“Therapist, you know. I do attempt to practice what I preach. I would like to sleep. Should we move to the bedroom?”

“If you’re comfortable, no need to move. Sleep.” He kissed her forehead, and brought his other arm around to hold her against him. 

She dozed, fading in and out, and at some point he helped her lay down on the couch and covered her with a blanket. When she finally woke up completely, he was sitting slightly apart from her reading a padd. She pushed herself up slowly, and rubbed her eyes.

“I’m reading a long list of openings in Starfleet,” he murmured. “How do you feel?”

“Better. What time is it?” 

“Almost dinner time. Have a look at this.”

When she took the padd, she saw he’d filtered it down to a list of twelve positions. They all had one thing in common -- they were for psychologists. Most were teaching or supervisory.

“I’m guessing you looked at ones for yourself already?”

“There are five promotional positions I could ask for that would put us in San Francisco together, if you took one of the eight positions located at Command.”

“You like San Francisco?”

He gave her a one-shouldered shrug. “Most Starfleet postings on Earth will be based there. We could live anywhere on Earth, actually. Even next door to Robert and Marie.”

“Marie would love that, and so would I -- she could babysit for us.”

Leaning along the back of the couch, he reached for her hair, playing his fingers through it. “So, after thinking it through, I would expect the schedule to be -- get through the debriefings and the investigation, the court-martial, and then see what we’re offered. Decide on a location for the wedding, and schedule it for sometime in the next month or two, to be certain that our friends and family will all be there -- if we wait until everyone’s transferred it would be impossible. And whether we buy or rent a home will depend upon the outcome -- but I intend to find a rental immediately. No fleet housing for my family. I intend to provide you with a place to sunbathe in your natural state.”

“So you can watch?” she said with a grin.

“Or read to you. Bring you tea. Also, it will be big enough for us to have guests, and Alexander. Plus it must have excellent security -- I’ll have Mike take a look at it.”

Deanna sighed heavily. “Bok must have made an indelible impression on you.”

“I doubt Bok will be an issue. I’m thinking more about media and unwanted guests.”

She gazed at him and thought about what he was saying. Being on a ship for years was secure enough. It never occurred to her to think like that, in imagining a transition to planetside living. Living with Captain Picard would be not unlike living with her mother, who was a member of the government on Betazed. She nodded. 

“I’ve never lived on Earth -- visited, yes, and I spent two years at the Academy but don’t count that as it wasn’t civilian accommodations. I shall defer to your judgment.”

“I know you can probably take care of yourself,” he said, taking back the padd as she passed it to him. “But I feel strongly that security should be a priority. We’ll look at apartments, together, via subspace, and narrow it down so we can go see the top three and make a decision, the day we arrive.”

“That should be fine. I like space, and light, and I’d prefer to avoid carpeting.”

He nodded. “We already agree on those things. Not as difficult as you think, once again.”

“I’m very thankful for that. Are you getting the boys?”

“Yes. We have an appointment with a subspace call, to talk to Robert and Marie. And then we’ll replicate a new kit for tonight -- start a new model, perhaps something like an old British frigate. I might introduce them to ships in bottles….”


	41. The Revenge of the Water Buffalo

“Everything is all right?”

Deanna shot a look at Beverly, as they walked back to the too-small quarters. She kept herself together, but it felt like she might come apart any second. 

“I mean between the two of you. I’m not really getting a sense of it lately. You aren’t what I’d call the most overt of couples.”

“We’re fine. It may be that we’re on our way to being better or worse, depending. He’s having a difficult time with what happened on Veridian.”

Beverly followed her into quarters and paced a little as she watched Deanna go to the replicator. “I know he wants children, but….”

“We’re fine, Beverly.”

“Let me know if there’s anything I can do. I hope you still come to poker.” Beverly shot her a look and her concern spiked. But she left again.

Left her alone to face the music, pay the piper, or any of a thousand cliches Data could provide.

Deanna wondered what this would mean, in the longer term. If it would be too difficult. It was too soon. All the other things about this relationship that had been rushed -- all the anxiety, which proved to be nothing predictive -- but being pregnant now? Especially after he had made a point of being so careful in the beginning.

She started to feel really, really stupid. She had to talk to him before she had a complete meltdown.

“Computer, where is Captain Picard?”

“Captain Picard is on the bridge.”

She sat down, but it was too much, she couldn’t wait patiently. So she started to pace. Her agitation wasn’t helping, but meditating wouldn’t be possible, though it would be the first thing she would recommend to anyone. At least Alexander was with the other children on the holodeck -- one of the parents had used his holodeck time for the school children, to get them all together with their teacher, newly released from sickbay, just to help everyone start to heal together.

Jean-Luc arrived before she could wear a track in the gunmetal gray carpeting. He watched her come to a stop in the middle of the room. “What’s wrong?” He’d arrived looking sober, aware, and that probably meant he’d been able to tell she was upset before he arrived.

“Technically nothing. Is everything as it should be? You were on the bridge.”

“I was talking to Nechayev, about the atmosphere at Command, among other things. Informing myself before I started to create the short list of options. She asked after you. I have to wonder how nothing can be _technically_ wrong.”

“I made a mistake.”

He reacted to her inability to look at him by coming up to her and taking her face in his hands, to get her to look at him. “What mistake?”

“I should have gone to sickbay. I was a week and a half late getting my physical, and didn’t even think about what that meant. I get those monthly shots on the thirtieth day, like clockwork, except for last month when Robert was here and we were happily playing hosts, when I wasn’t even tracking what day it was. The timing -- I’m pregnant.”

His hands tightened on her shoulders. The shock was immediate and she had to remember to breathe, waiting for him to start to react. Her stomach had a knot in it she wished she could untie. 

The smile -- he gave her just a few seconds of that blazingly happy smile, before he yanked her into a strangling embrace. He gradually eased off, as did the knot in her stomach, and while he laughed he started to sway. 

“Told you that you’d teach me to dance,” he said, while he waltzed her around in circles.

“It’s not -- “ She almost said she was only a week along, and it was too soon to dance. That women in her family were prone to miscarry, that her mother had miscarried, multiple times, and her hybrid status only increased the likelihood. She almost said that the first months were critical and that the general statistics indicated most miscarriages happened very early, and mothers could have them without ever realizing they were pregnant. That chromosomal abnormalities were the most common cause, and such things were much more likely with hybrids. Beverly’s thoroughness was the only reason she’d found out this early. 

Deanna could have explained how she’d wanted to be quite intentional, seeing a doctor every step of the way, to remove some of the anxiety she hadn’t talked to him about yet -- the issues in human-Betazoid hybrids were easily dealt with, relatively speaking, especially with very early intervention. That it made everything so much simpler to have a doctor make use of the legal applications of genetic modification, right from the conception of the child. That a week after conception was too late to do that and reduce the chances of miscarriage.

But he was happy. And it was easy, to float on his excitement and let him show her how enraptured he could be by this development. 

“It’s really early. We have about ten months to wait for the baby. We’re doing this so backward,” she exclaimed. “Jean-Luc, everything’s -- I can’t -- “

A wave of anxiety flooded her. She stumbled, and he caught her against him again. “Deanna?”

“I’m dizzy,” she gasped. “Let’s sit down. Jean-Luc, stop, I’m just anxious.”

“Sorry.” He let go, stopped trying to pick her up, backed up, but immediately reached for her again as she headed for the couch and wobbled a little. “You’re sure you’re all right?”

“Beverly wouldn’t have let me come home if I weren’t. I’m trying to process this, that’s all. I’m in shock. I didn’t think a few days would matter. I should have been more careful.”

‘You aren’t happy about this?”

Her anxiety was clouding her sense of him, but the trepidation in his voice brought her eyes to his, and she stared at him. His hand remained on hers, on the couch between them -- he was watching her with wide eyes, and sat upright and stiff.

“I don’t know what this will -- we had a plan,” she said, trying to take deeper breaths. “I’m sorry.”

“I’ve learned that sometimes the things we don’t plan can be the best part of our lives,” he said, his bright smile returning. “I didn’t plan to tell you how I felt about you. I didn’t plan any of this. I tried to be rational in the actual execution, but this has a life of its own, Deanna, and at this point it doesn’t even matter any more what my intentions are, so if we’re going to go down this path let’s enjoy it.”

It would completely ruin everything to observe that this was what Mother had been telling her for years, so instead of commenting in any way, Deanna took another deep breath, and smiled, and nodded.

“You’re right. I’m overthinking it.”

“Come look at these apartments I’ve found.”

She spent the next hour in a state of numbness. He would look at her as if he could tell she was feeling off, but go on about something -- around the end of a list of apartments and their pros and cons, showing her pictures on the padd, she started to come out of it a little, to think, and then she was smiling as if she’d just heard the best joke.

“Deanna?”

“Nothing, sorry. I’m trying to pay attention and I guess I’m still in shock.” No matter what, she was not about to ruin it by observing that Jean-Luc Picard was happily showing behavior that was usually referred to as ‘nesting.’

He went quiet. It started to concern her, but he smiled again -- not the happy grin any more, this one was a little sad, and attempting to be conciliatory. “Deanna, I don’t want you to do anything that you aren’t ready to do.”

That put her in a different kind of shock, one she was even less prepared for, and she shook her head violently and started to cry. “No! Why would you even say that?”

“I don’t know how to help you. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t need help,” she said with a sigh. “I feel completely overwhelmed. I already felt anxious enough about the wedding, and I’m still not quite accepting that the _Enterprise_ is gone. And I’m not sure how to feel about not being able to work with Captain Picard any more, if there’s no offer of another ship. And -- in a few months, I may not be able to see the majority of my clients any longer.”

“Wait,” he interrupted. “You’re sounding nothing like Counselor Troi.”

It might have been all right, if she had not been on her last nerve. It might have been something she laughed at if she hadn't been so overwhelmed. Instead, she descended into a haze, from which she emerged to find that she was swinging something -- a couch cushion -- and her target was dodging frantically, and she let go and catapulted from the couch, and ran. There wasn't any rational thought behind it, she realized she was out of control and the first impulse was to depart the vicinity before something bad happened, and so her body did its best to do just that. Good old fight or flight instinct.

Of course, she ran into the wall, which was where the door to her old quarters would be, instead of the door, which was several feet to the right.

She fell down, hard, and cried a little, her hands to her face. That left her with an ache in her belly and tears on her face, and a really sharp throb in her face. She looked up and found that he was standing over her, being stiff, uptight Captain Picard confronted by a wholly irrational person that he could not begin to address with his usual panache. That in itself was a testament to how awry this had gone.

“I bwoke by dose.”

He gave her a wary look that rivaled the one he usually had when her mother was on her way to visit. “Picard to Crusher.” And then he took her arm when she tried to stand, let her lean on him to catch her balance.

“I’m on my way,” came the response, which was entirely too stern. 

Beverly didn’t bother with the annunciator -- she flew into the room at a doctor’s walk, that red-alert stride that said someone was in sickbay for good reasons and she was in a hurry, and as she brought up the tricorder she looked Deanna in the face in total dumbfounded shock, then at Jean-Luc, open-mouthed as she struggled for words.

“She ran into the wall,” he said calmly, as if it happened every day.

Deanna started to sob once more -- the throbbing intensified. 

Beverly had the fastest hypospray in the galaxy. At least it mostly took care of the pain. She worked the regenerator over her nose, and then demanded that they come to sickbay. Jean-Luc followed them passively. And so there was another sickbay visit to live through -- the chief medical officer of the _Farragut_ had, no doubt, seen everything and then some, and his accepting and calm presence helped, even though he did nothing but stand back and let Beverly fix her face.

Then Beverly walked them both back to quarters, and stood radiating displeasure at them, with tightly-crossed arms, glaring at them.

For once, Deanna said nothing. Just looked at the floor.

That proved to be the right thing to do. Beverly calmed down enough to shake Deanna by the shoulders, gently, and then slide her arms around her. “I shouldn’t have left you alone. I should have known he wouldn’t know what to do with you when you’re that anxious.”

“Wait,” he protested. Beverly must have given him a look. He went quiet.

“I think you should go take a shower, and let me talk to Jean-Luc for a minute.” Which was Beverly-speak for ‘you look terrible’ but it was enough to propel her, anxiety and all, into the bathroom to do as instructed. But as she passed the mirror over the sink, she saw her own face, and turned her back on her reflection to sit on the edge of the counter and try to breathe.

Some indefinite amount of time later, Jean-Luc arrived. He held her tightly for a few moments, then went about preparing a warm wash cloth and starting to dab it against her face. She took it from him and finished the job of removing makeup and hopefully not looking so red-faced.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I’m no good at this.”

Deanna started to laugh and cry at the same time, and put her arms around his neck. “It’s okay,” she said wetly. “I’m being quite stupid myself.”

“We can do this. But it will take… a lot of deep breathing, and some patience, and I swear I’m going to put padding on every hard surface and sharp edge.“

The laughing started to edge out the tears. “Damn buffalo.”

“Let’s back up for a moment and consider this. I should have come in, hugged you, and not let go. So you wouldn’t have started to fray at the edges. Correct?”

“But I wasn’t in a state to even recognize that. Which you even noticed, which was why you said I wasn’t being Counselor Troi, which I couldn’t -- “

“Stop, now. I’m sorry I said that. It was a lousy thing to say -- I know better than to think you’ve been the counselor with me at all, since this relationship started.”

She leaned on him and rested her forehead against his shoulder. “You were pointing out that I had lost all composure and I proved that you were absolutely correct. And you were being patient, talking about apartments and waiting for me to stop being shocked and start being happy with you, but I’m having difficulty having any feelings at all. I can’t stop feeling numb. I think about having a baby, and all I want to do is cry.”

Jean-Luc wrapped his arms around her, and a wave of sympathy flooded her. “I didn’t even think about it. Didn’t even occur to me that it might be a trigger. I think this is -- “

“Old trauma,” she said, her voice hardening. “I really am being stupid. I never did anything -- I never talked to anyone about Ian. We just went on to the next mission and I missed him for a while, but I never once thought it would -- but my body remembers it, and I miss him. I felt it in my entire body, missing him, and it’s just like that.”

He held her for a few minutes more before finally leading her out of the bathroom, and toward the bed. “I’m feeling lagged myself,” he commented. “Perhaps a short nap before we go to the poker game, because we can afford to?”

Deanna let herself think about Ian, for a while, curled up against him. He actually slept for a bit, but awakened and then lay there not wanting to move and disturb her.

“Did Beverly tell you anything about the intricacies of hybridization and the higher rate of miscarriage in naturally-conceived second generation hybrids?”

His arms tightened around her rib cage, briefly. “That wouldn’t make a difference now, would it?”

Well, there went that big balloon of anxiety, deflating with just a single point of logic. “I suppose not.”

“Here’s what we can do. When you are being incredibly anxious for no reason, I will give you a signal to remind you to breathe. When you require my intervention you can give me a signal to do that.”

“How about this?” She held up her arm, extending her middle finger. 

“That can be the secret signal to meet in the bedroom with all your clothes off. I was thinking something less obvious for the others.”

“How about hugging me first and asking questions later?”

“I suppose simplicity has merit.”

"Hugging good. Talking bad."

"And sarcasm is the adhesive which binds us together?"

Deanna smirked, rolling her eyes. "I haven't even begun to be hormonal, Jean-Luc. I should start apologizing now for all the hell I'm about to put you through."

"Hm, sounds like a familiar sentiment that was previously driven by anxiety. We'll be all right," he replied. "Everything will be fine."

It really was a wonder she hadn't included the word 'delusional' in any of her logs pertaining to him.... At the rate things were going, the next complication should crop up in just a day or two. But he was back to being quite happy, in a contented and confident way. So she closed her eyes and hoped the water buffalo would stop whispering in her ear for ten months.


	42. Coming Down to Earth

“Where are we going?” Alexander asked, as they walked into the transporter room at Starfleet Academy. Deanna had spent the morning walking and jogging around with Alexander, taking him on a tour of the grounds of Command to give him exercise while Jean-Luc went through the initial debriefing with admirals. They had eaten lunch together, and then Jean-Luc took them for the afternoon to something Alexander enjoyed -- a tournament, between Starfleet cadets, showcasing the many weapons of dozens of martial arts practiced in the Federation.

Jean-Luc smiled -- no, that was a sly grin, up to something he was sure they would all enjoy -- and guided Deanna forward with a nudge to the back. “We are going home.”

“Home?”

“Let’s just wait and see,” Deanna said.

Jean-Luc gestured at the attendant -- he had obviously pre-arranged things -- and the three of them dematerialized. They rematerialized facing a gray wall. 

Alexander jumped around as Deanna turned. “A hotel?”

It was indeed a lobby -- there was a large area rug and furnishings, and off to the side a counter with a man behind it. Across from the counter, along the opposite wall, four turbolift doors waited for them. 

“Not a hotel. Come along,” Jean-Luc said, heading for the nearest lift. “Just wait until you see your room.”

That made Alexander so excited that he practically bounced for the duration of the ride -- he took Deanna’s hand and smiled up at her, which led to her smiling back at him happily. 

The journey to Earth had been filled with poker games, the clearing of their inboxes and sending correspondence, indulgent naps, watching Alexander and Rene be entertained by their friends -- Data and Mike had taken turns playing chess with Alexander, and Wes had played a truly epic kadis-kot tournament with both boys. Leila and Beverly had joined Deanna in the ship’s tiny spa for facials, one afternoon. The remaining four days of travel to Earth went by more quickly than the first two, as Deanna spent the time being reflective and trying to settle her nerves. She finally told Jean-Luc to choose a place for them himself. It was temporary anyway, she reasoned, and she didn’t want to worry about it.

“Here we are,” Jean-Luc exclaimed as the door opened on floor twenty-five. They walked a short hall to a door at the end. 

“Are we the only ones on this floor? Aren’t these apartments?” Deanna asked. She walked behind Alexander, who started to jog. The door didn’t respond to his presence. He turned to watch them approach.

The panel at the left of the door wasn’t just an annunciator button -- Jean-Luc put his hand against it, and it lit up briefly in turquoise. He tapped a few digits on a number pad below it, and gestured at Deanna. She pressed her hand to the panel as well, and it lit up again. He repeated the process and told Alexander he was next. 

With that chore taken care of, Jean-Luc led the way through the door, which parted as he approached it. She followed him down long, wide stairs, to an open area -- vaulted ceiling, no walls, just very tall windows that curved to become the ceiling. The view was fantastic. Rooftops of tall buildings and beyond them, the Pacific Ocean. The sprawling living area was all earth tones. Tall ceramic vases stood on wooden end tables -- sunflowers were the flower of the day. The floor was all wood paneling, or perhaps synthetic made to look like it.

“Kitchen is over there,” he said, pointing to the corner where there was a nook containing a replicator. “Not going to do any cooking, without some additional equipment, but we don’t tend to do that anyway. The bedrooms are down the corridor over there.” He pointed the opposite direction.

Alexander ran for it, disappearing through the door. She heard him shouting excitedly a moment later. 

Deanna went after him, and found him in a huge room that was obviously done with a child in mind. The bat’leth hung on the wall, as did the mek’leth. The model of a British frigate that they had completed while on the _Farragut_ sat on the table, and the bed had a bedspread in red and gold. 

“I can see the ocean,” Alexander exclaimed, from where he stood at the far wall/window. “Look, Mom! When are we going to the beach?”

“You can go whenever your mother would like to take you,” Jean-Luc said from behind Deanna. “I’m going to be a little busy for a while, or I’d go with you.”

“We’re going to spend the rest of the week having some fun, Alexander, you and I have some shopping to do -- we all need clothes, and there’s a lot to see in San Francisco. And then we’re going to get you in a school next week.”

“Are all the kids from the _Enterprise_ going to be there?”

“I don’t know which school yet, but I’ll ask some of the parents -- see where they are sending your friends.” Deanna put a hand on the back of Alexander’s head. “We’re also planning a wedding -- I hope you can help me with some of that.”

“Sure, no problem. Is the other room yours?” He pointed across the hall at the door opposite.

“It’s a guest room,” Jean-Luc said. “There are two guest bedrooms. You might be seeing your grandmother soon.”

“Great! I miss her. Maybe she’ll want to go to the beach too.”

“I’m going to go look at the rest of the apartment, and then we’re going out,” Jean-Luc said. “It’s almost dinner time. You can replicate something to drink if you want. We’ll go in just a bit. Your clothes are in the closet, Alexander, so take a shower and change -- we’re going out for dinner.”

“Okay,” Alexander exclaimed, and dashed for another door -- he apparently had his own bathroom.

Deanna followed Jean-Luc down the hall through the door at the end. The room inside was twice as big as Alexander’s, crescent shaped and with a large round bed in the center. Clearly the master bedroom. No standard issue here -- the floor was a darker wood than the living area, and the room all in whites and greens. Deanna stared -- this was more than she had expected of a temporary dwelling.

“The house computer can make all the windows one-way, or transparent, or opaque,” Jean-Luc said. “There’s a jetted tub in the bathroom, and there’s a replicator here in the master bedroom. You’ll find, I hope, that it all meets your requirements.”

Deanna beamed at him happily. “Of course it does.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to tell Alexander it’s a nursery?”

“It won’t be for a long time. I’d rather not tell anyone yet.”

He sidled toward her and put his arms around her, one hand flat over her stomach. “I know.”

“I have an interview next week, with the chancellor at the Academy. How did it go, this morning?”

“They reviewed the records of the bridge recorder, the officers’ logs. Some of the sensor logs from the _Timor_. It wasn’t hard for them to come to the conclusion there wasn’t much else that could have been done.”

“It still feels unreal,” Deanna said, raising her eyes to the ceiling. At the moment it was transparent, giving them a view of the clouds in the blue sky. 

“It does to me as well. It feels a little like it did when I was dreaming of Kataan. As if I’ll wake up and be somewhere else.” He brushed his lips along her cheek. “Except you’re here, and I know you’re real.”

“I’m going to enjoy settling in with you here. I’m hungry, Jean-Luc.”

“Then we shall go forth and seek sustenance. We’re having dinner out as I said.”

“Let’s go to Diamond Dogs,” she said, to see what reaction she would get.

“We’re meeting some friends,” he said. “Do you want to change out of the uniform?”

She went to the closet, tucked in the curve of the wall to their left, and found that the clothes they had accumulated en route to Earth were there. She drew out the green dress and the pair of sandals. 

“Deanna,” he scolded before she could put on the dress.

“You’d rather I wore something else? Would you like to specify?”

He hung the jacket of his uniform and reached for the red dress -- something she had replicated just for him, one evening, while Alexander and Rene had been staying with the Garcias. It had a lower neckline and had a slit up her right calf. Not what she would consider a family friendly dress. 

“You said we were going out with friends.”

“You have some habits to break too. We don’t have a crew at the moment to worry about. We don’t have to adhere to some dress code. Especially you, at the moment.”

She could tell he was serious -- he was quite determined, in fact, although a little nervous about something. “Jean-Luc, you don’t have to push so hard. I know you want to have more to your life than just Starfleet, but if it’s too much I’d rather -- “

“Please humor me,” he said quietly.

“As you wish.” She turned and headed for the door on the far left, where she found that the bathroom was above and beyond -- gleaming fixtures and surfaces everywhere, a huge deep tub, the dual mode shower, and in a drawer near the sink, the hair things she had accumulated on the _Farragut_. He had rescued her jewelry drawer from the wreckage, and found that the second drawer contained those things. 

After a quick sonic shower, she returned to the bedroom brushing out her hair, and paused at the replicator, which was to the left of the bathroom door, to request underwear. She shot him a smile -- he was dressed, in a nice black jacket and slacks, not incredibly formal. She put on the red dress and he came from checking out the view from their window to fasten the back for her. 

“The full length mirror is a good thing. It was something I missed, in your quarters.” She turned around in front of the mirrored closet door and decided to put her hair up. “What else did the admirals tell you this morning?”

“That’s part of what I want to talk to everyone about tonight,” he said. The anxiety he felt intensified.

She twisted her hair around and around, creating a twist on the crown of her head and letting the length of it fall to the nape of her neck, and stuck a comb through to hold it there. Studying her reflection, she went back to the jewelry drawer and came back with a necklace and earrings. His mother’s diamonds went well with the dress. 

Jean-Luc stepped up behind her -- he put a hand on her back, and gazed at their reflection with a warm smile. “Beautiful.”

“What ship did they offer you?”

His gaze went to the floor, and he chuckled a bit at it. “I suppose I shouldn’t assume I could surprise you. They haven’t made an offer, really. More of a hint. There’s a new ship design coming out of the yards in eight months, and the first one will be named _Enterprise_. Nechayev dropped the fact into conversation for a reason, I’m sure.”

“You’re going to take it,” she mumbled as his hands went to her hips. 

“They haven’t offered it.” He kissed her bare shoulder, hovering behind her, so close she could feel the warmth from him. “We should explore our options, as we planned. There’s plenty of time to decide.”

But she knew him -- she knew how interested he was. Sighing, she turned to him and brushed her lips across his. “So when do we start our vacation?”

“You can start now, of course. I intend to help Robert with the rebuilding of the house, help him replant the vineyards. But we’ll have time to travel, just the two of us.” He slipped an arm around her, putting his hand again on her abdomen. It was so easy to see how excited he was, about the child. 

“Or we could stay in bed, for two weeks,” she murmured while he nibbled on her ear.

A soft unobtrusive chime echoed through the room. He moaned, took a step toward the door, collecting her in his arm. “It’s got to be someone from the senior staff, or Robert. No one else knows we are here.”

Deanna followed him out, to find Alexander at the front door, wearing some of his better clothes, looking at a small screen -- he turned to them and scowled. “What’s he doing here?”

“Go to your room,” Jean-Luc ordered. The stern order startled her -- but the boy obeyed, immediately, without a word. Deanna stared at his retreating back then turned to the screen, to the tiny image of Will Riker standing there.

“It’s not Will,” she said quietly. “Don’t respond to him.”

“You aren’t surprised,” Jean-Luc said, a bit alarmed. 

“Thomas would have heard, as everyone else has by now, about what happened with Will. It doesn’t surprise me that he was able to find me.”

She gazed into Jean-Luc’s eyes, countering his urge to open the door and punch the man standing outside with her constant push of affection and determined restraint. 

On the screen, Thomas made the classic Riker frustrated face and turned to go. She could sense his determination, however. 

“Jean-Luc. You know I love you.”

He turned from the screen, from watching Riker’s retreat, and gave her the captain’s frustrated scowl, that things were not going as planned. The expression softened somewhat, as she took his hand.

“I’m hungry,” she murmured, taking a step to press her cheek to his and lean, her hands flat on his chest. “You need to feed me.”

“Alexander,” he called out. “Time to go.”

This time, they rode to the ground floor and left the building. Jean-Luc led them down the street, and it was then that she realized the full scope of what he had done -- they were up the hill from Market Street, in San Francisco, in a penthouse. Alexander was looking in windows, at storefronts, pointing out a dress he thought she would look pretty in, admiring toys -- he asked Jean-Luc if he could have a pet, again.

The restaurant was on the corner four blocks from their building. “Mad Dog in the Fog,” Deanna said, reading the sign over the door as he guided them inside. “What kind of restaurant is named after a mad dog?”

“The one I made reservations in,” he said, quite pleased with himself. 

The host led them through the busy building, past the bar, into a private area at the back -- Beverly and Wes were already there, as were Robert and Marie with Rene. And already, the difference made itself known. No one in uniform, and Beverly hugged them all three in turn, with abandon, saving Deanna for last and pulling her aside.

“Making me look frumpy,” she muttered as they strolled the length of the set table long enough for a dozen people, away from the others as Wes greeted Alexander and Jean-Luc kissed Marie on the cheek. 

“It’s what I get for letting him pick from a very limited wardrobe. And I like your dress, it matches your eyes. What’s up?”

“I just wanted to check on you. How you’re doing. If you’re feeling better about everything?”

“I’m fine. In a little shock, at the moment -- where are you and Wes staying?”

Beverly led her around the end of the table, and slowly back toward the others. Now Data was coming in, starting a new round of greetings. “I got a suite in a hotel. We’re looking at a couple of apartments tomorrow. Did Jean-Luc get you a place, then?”

“There’s a building up the hill -- the Grenada? We’re in the penthouse. I don’t even want to know how he managed it.”

Beverly gave her an incredulous look, then shook her head with a roll of the eyes and a knowing smile, and turned to greet Mike and Leila. Ro Llaren wasn’t far behind them, and here came Natchez as well. 

It was as it had been each time they had gotten together, en route to Earth. Only now, free of uniforms and duty entirely, with absolutely no chance of recall to duty, she could see how relaxed they all were -- all smiles and laughter, and trading stories of how and where they had settled. Alexander and Rene sat together between Marie and Data, relieving Deanna of any obligation to shepherd her foster son through dinner -- not that he needed much of her attention -- it would have given her a reason to be less involved, though. So she sat at Jean-Luc’s left, at the head of the table, and responded to conversation with a smile or a chuckle here and there, sipped her tall glass of water and ate quietly. 

Until Data, on Jean-Luc’s right hand, gave her a look. In a lull in conversation after Mike finished the story of how he and Leila got the last two bedroom apartment in fleet housing over in the Presidio, which included Leila making an appeal to her sister-in-law’s cousin’s uncle or something, who knew some lieutenant-commander in the quartermaster’s office, Data spoke. 

“Deanna, are you feeling all right?”

“I’m fine, Data,” she replied with a warm smile. “A bit tired, perhaps. Alexander and I had a full day.”

“How did the court-martial go?” Geordi asked, from Data’s right. 

“Uneventful,” Jean-Luc replied. He hesitated, and it was clear that they all knew what that pensive expression meant -- Deanna sensed the tension rise, in her former crewmates, as he glanced around at them. Trying to decide whether to say anything, likely. 

“Tell them,” she murmured, appealing to him not to force her to keep secrets.

He gave her a fond look -- nothing like he had been aboard the ship, her dear captain, being untethered from a starship had freed him from that formality he’d had. His eyes went to Data, and on to Geordi, as he spoke.

“The next version of the _Enterprise_ has already been determined,” he said. “I’ve been informed that I might like to visit the shipyards at some point, to take a tour of the Sovereign class vessel under construction there.”

“Awesome,” Geordi exclaimed, exchanging a grin with Natchez, who sat across the table. 

The excitement from the others was now rising, and Deanna found herself feeling all of it, on top of the ongoing state of uncertainty and slight disassociation she had been struggling with, and rather than ruin the party she kept smiling and taking tiny bites of her food. Mike asked questions about the new class of starship, launching comparisons between Galaxy class and Sovereign, which led to Data and Geordi dominating the conversation. Clearly, the engineer’s spare time in transit had been spent researching what was going on at Utopia Planitia.

Jean-Luc touched her leg under the table, getting her attention; she glanced at him and found herself caught in his concerned eyes, as she put down her fork. He was wondering what was wrong -- it occurred to her that she could tell what he was thinking, that he was afraid her low mood might have something to do with the baby, and she tried to give him a reassuring smile. She was peripherally aware that Leila was asking her if she was feeling all right, but caught up in the silent exchange with Jean-Luc, she didn’t answer right away.

“I believe she is pregnant,” Data said.

That brought Deanna’s head up, and everyone turned to stare at the android -- he had come so far, in the years they had been working together, that he recognized at once that he had made a faux pas -- he gave Deanna an apologetic look.

“I have noticed that during the past week you have not taken any alcoholic beverages, only water,” he said in quiet chagrin. “Perhaps my assumption was incorrect.”

“Are you, Mom?” Alexander exclaimed, bouncing in his chair. He was excited about it, at least. 

“I’m just not feeling well, lately,” she responded wearily. “Ever since the crash -- there’s been a lot of anxiety for me to tolerate from our crew, you know. And now I’m trying to adjust to so many things at once -- I think I’ve been stressed out since the undercover mission ended and never quite been able to recover. The constant stress upsets my stomach, and adding alcohol to that simply didn’t appeal to me.”

“Perhaps I should take you home.”

She smiled ruefully at Jean-Luc. “No, I’m fine. Just don’t expect me to dance on the table.”

“I can do it, if we want table dancing,” Mike volunteered with a grin. 

But her effort to not put a damper on the party failed, likely because her wonderful friends were concerned about her and not wanting to keep her out all night, and Ro was the first to go -- she still wasn’t completely comfortable, still felt awkward when with the group, but she put a hand on Deanna’s shoulder as she went along toward the door, promising to call her. And then Natchez departed, and Geordi asked to be contacted when Jean-Luc went to see the ship, and it unraveled from there, slowly, until Beverly, Wes, Marie and Robert remained. 

Marie came around the table to sit in the chair next to Deanna for a moment, to put an arm around her shoulders. She turned away from the rest of them, toward the wall behind them, as she whispered, “It’s true, isn’t it, what Mr. Data guessed?”

Deanna turned to hug her future sister-in-law. “It’s too early to talk about,” she replied ever so softly.

Marie simply smiled and rocked her back and forth, hugging her, patting her back. “I imagine you, like me, have lost most of your wardrobe. We are staying in a hotel here -- we should go shopping tomorrow.”

“Yes,” Deanna said with a smile. As they sat back from each other, she grinned up at Beverly, standing to give her a hug farewell. “You’re coming shopping with us tomorrow as well.”

“Not like I have appointments,” Beverly said. “See you for brunch? I’ll let Wes sleep in.”

Deanna gave them directions to meet her in the morning at the penthouse, and Jean-Luc decided with them that the kids should stay with Robert and himself to spare them the ordeal -- something Alexander supported wholeheartedly, after the last shopping trip. They had, Jean-Luc said, plans to make and arrangements that would require plenty of coffee and time. Rene and Alexander could work on one of the models or play games.

On the walk back to their building, Jean-Luc caught her up against him and let her draw warmth from him. It was now dark, with street lamps to light the way but San Francisco was chilly at night this time of year. 

“Are you pregnant, Mom?” Alexander asked again, proving he wasn’t just another little kid.

“We’ll have children at some point, Alexander. Let’s talk about this some other time.”

“So you are,” he said with a grin, skipping a few steps over to grab her hand.

“It’s not something you can brag about,” Jean-Luc said, as they strolled along together through the front door of their building. “We don’t want too many people to know about it, all right?”

“But it’s good news! It’s great news!”

Deanna gripped his fingers tightly. “It’s very, very early to even know about it. Let us tell people on our schedule. Please?”

“Ooh-kayyyy,” he said tolerantly, but he kept grinning up at her as they approached the lift. 

As the lift approached the penthouse she tried to relax, shed the anxiety from the evening, and found herself aware then of someone else -- she had no time to say anything, didn’t know what to say in front of Alexander, and then the door opened. Thomas Riker had returned and leaned against the wall in the hall patiently. He was looking at them expectantly. 

Alexander was in motion almost the instant he saw Thomas -- and, to her shock, the rage from him was immediate.

“GO AWAY!” Alexander shouted. He started to flail at Thomas with fists and feet. Deanna was in motion seconds after, trying to drag him off, and then he was shrieking about protecting her and insisting that he wasn’t going to let him get away with it again.

She put a hand to the panel and wrestled him through the front door, leaving Jean-Luc to deal with Riker. “Alexander,” she cried, letting him go finally but having to catch him in her arm again when he tried to go back outside.

“He can’t,” Alexander wailed. “He can’t do it again! I won’t let him!”

Deanna caught him against her and held him tightly, trying to calm herself and him at the same time. He started to sob, and she whispered comfort to him, swaying gently.

The door opened to admit Jean-Luc -- he was furious, but as he approached them slowly he deliberately calmed himself. He touched her shoulder, and then Alexander’s.

“He’s gone now, and he won’t come back,” Jean-Luc said. “Alexander, calm down.”

The sobbing ebbed. Deanna let him go as he pulled away. His face still twisted in anger and fear, he rubbed his eyes and stomped a few times. 

“Go get ready for bed,” Jean-Luc said, as if nothing at all was wrong. “He’s not coming back.”

“He wanted to stop you,” Alexander shouted. “He wanted you to leave her -- he did it before, he told Father to leave her alone!”

Jean-Luc grabbed the little Klingon by the shoulders and gave him a quick shake. “Listen,” he snapped, then softened somewhat. “Alexander. He’s not going to succeed, even if that’s what he wants. She doesn’t want to go with him. I told him to go away, to leave her alone. He’s never coming back again. And if he does, we’ll get rid of him. Won’t we?”

Alexander’s chest heaved -- he was surprisingly calmer, but still quite upset. Jean-Luc put a hand on his head then, and smiled affectionately.

“Go get ready for bed. Take deep breaths. The computer will alert us if he comes back. I will have him arrested if he does, without ever opening the door. She’s safe here, I promise.”

“Okay,” Alexander said at last, and a wide smile replaced the anger in his face. He swayed a little, then lunged to throw his arms around Jean-Luc’s neck. “Thanks, Dad.”

Deanna watched her foster son being hugged by Jean-Luc, with a sense of unreality -- she smiled again, and then caught Alexander in a brief hug before he hurried off to his room. Jean-Luc reached over to gently grasp her elbow and guide her toward their room.

“How long has he been calling you dad?” she asked, starting the process of removing jewelry and the combs in her hair. 

“Since sometime while you were gone on that mission. He doesn’t do it often.” Jean-Luc whipped off the jacket, hung it up in the closet, and pulled his shirt over his head. “He thought it was Will.”

“Yes. What did Thomas say?”

Jean-Luc took an isolinear module out of his pocket and held it up. “He said this was for you. I told him to stay gone for good. To send you a message first, if he ever thought he might have the urge to talk to you again.”

She took the module and went into the bathroom. It went into the drawer with the jewelry and hair combs, and she put up her arms to reach between her shoulder blades to unhook the dress. 

Jean-Luc was there to help her do that, and when she let the dress slide down her body to the floor, to unfasten the bra and then let his hands glide along her skin, over her breasts, bringing her to his chest. 

“I love you, Deanna.”

“I love you,” she responded, smiling, crying a little. “I’m sorry that I’ve been so… out of it. I can’t seem to orient myself.”

“It’ll take time. I know. If I weren’t busy I think I would feel the same. Give it time.”

She cleaned her teeth and he did the same -- the bathroom had two sinks, and plenty of counter space. They went to bed and she found herself gazing at the transparent ceiling, through it to the stars far above, distant and glittering coldly. 

“Is it too soon to tell what gender?” he asked after laying there for a while holding her.

Deanna smiled, amused in a tired way but mostly enjoying how happy he was, how focused on family he was being. “Are you sure you want to know?”

His hand found her abdomen yet again. She would have to get used to it, obviously. He’d been doing it all week. “I do.”

“The genetics indicated that it will be a boy.”

A breathless laugh, at that. “Laurent.”

“All right. Laurent.” Deanna enjoyed the wave of happiness it gave him. “So I’ll name the other nine?”

Jean-Luc shifted around to kiss her cheek, drawing her into his arms. He sighed heavily into her hair. “Do you want me to accept the ship?”

She winced. His hand went to her head, to smooth her hair away from her forehead. He knew how she was feeling -- he wanted, he loved, he hoped, and as he tracked her response, regretted.

“You’re afraid,” he whispered. 

“You said we had time,” she said tearfully. “To think.”

“So I did. So we will take time.” Jean-Luc kissed her forehead. “We’ll talk about it later. Let’s take time off, see how it all goes…. Have a baby.”

“Get married?”

“Hmm, you have to work on that. Perhaps you’ll find a dress tomorrow?”

Deanna let him stroke her hair, rested in the warmth of his love, and eventually went to sleep thinking about holding the baby in her arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are restaurants about with the names I'm using, but any similarities to the real thing are unintentional. I just like the names.


	43. Just Because You're Paranoid Doesn't Mean They Aren't Out To Get You.

It took two weeks to settle into a routine. Deanna found that they all rose early, it was a very old habit after all, and that led to going on a run together -- there was a wonderful park nearby, with plenty of trails through trees and ponds. Alexander would take the aggressive course, leaping over things and rambling cross country, while she and Jean-Luc ran the trails. And breakfast would follow, sitting on the balcony sometimes as the weather allowed. It was strange, having weather to consider, and it led to jackets and even rain gear being hung in the closet just inside the front door.

Shopping and going about making their new place a home were almost a mission, with a little feedback from Jean-Luc here and there. Deanna found herself drawn to that same nesting behavior she’d noticed in Jean-Luc -- bringing home baby things in addition to slowly filling drawers and closets with clothing appropriate for their new lives. Alexander starting school left her to shop alone, or go with Marie, who was becoming a frequent companion, or Beverly, who had started to participate in a project already on a part-time basis. 

The interview with the chancellor at the Academy resulted in the offer of a single class, which she would teach to Command school students, cadets with advanced coursework bound for command of a starship. She knew it was a trial run for her. It was probably obvious that an officer in transition wouldn’t necessarily know yet whether another shipboard assignment was in her future, and there was the added layer of being engaged and pregnant, not that they knew about that. 

Three weeks after coming to San Francisco, she stood at the door watching Jean-Luc heading out to walk Alexander to school with a smile -- he gave her a look as he followed their foster child into the lift that said he was happy, and she mirrored it, because she was -- and then turned to the replicator for another cup of post-breakfast coffee, thinking about her tasks for the day. The class would be twice a week in the evening, starting next week, and she had research to do -- the curriculum used by the prior instructor awaited her attention on a padd she’d left on an end table. 

But she thought about the chance meeting the day before, and it reminded her of the visit from Thomas. She and Jean-Luc had been on the campus at the Academy, where they had eaten lunch with Geordi -- their former engineer had also opted to teach a class, for the budding engineers. Geordi, like Jean-Luc, had a fondness for sailing, and had asked them to come discuss an idea he had for the friends who had been Captain Picard’s senior staff. He wanted to spend a few days with all of them sailing a full scale model of the USS Victory, a British sailing ship. Deanna had begrudgingly agreed to it, only if Beverly also came along.

And as they left the commissary to walk across campus taking the scenic route, in hopes of meeting Boothby along the way, they had bumped into Kyle Riker. Jean-Luc hadn’t recognized him. She had -- Kyle had shown no overt interest, as he had been walking east while they strolled south and west, but she’d sensed recognition and interest, and a little wariness. She’d said nothing to Jean-Luc about it, but continued the conversation they’d been having, about the possibility of using a few days of their vacation to join Geordi on the Victory. 

Deanna settled on the sofa, but the padd wasn’t holding her interest. Dreading the outcome, she went into the bathroom and fished the module from the drawer, where it had been languishing under an accumulation of bracelets in a bin. She brought it back out to the living room and inserted it into the side of the padd. 

It contained a lot of information. The file at the top of the list was a long list of names. She alphabetized them and scrolled through quickly, recognizing names, and for the first time in a while, Cardassian voles started to chew at her stomach. 

The other files -- she opened one at random, from farther down the list. It was an audio file. Two voices.

“We’ll deploy the sixth fleet along the border,” Nechayev said. “Seventh fleet will be spread along the Demilitarized Zone.”

“You should keep Picard out of the area.” The male voice wasn’t familiar to her -- there was a quality to it that made her think that it might be best to not hear what he said next. 

After a pause, Nechayev responded, in a tentative tone that was wholly unlike the admiral’s usual near-belligerence. “Then you believe he is a risk to the operation.”

“To himself, perhaps,” the smug, carefully-modulated tenor said. Then in a quieter, smoother manner: “Sometimes idealists need more protection, Elena.”

Deanna yanked the module from the padd. She double-checked to ensure the padd wasn’t connected to the house computer wirelessly and tucked the module down the front of the tank top she wore, as the polite chime sounded through the house.

“There is an incoming call from the front desk,” the computer announced softly, in a soothing male tenor. “Would you like to speak to Mr. Mann?”

“Yes, please.” In the private sector, computers were pleasant and almost sounded sentient. She didn’t care for it. 

“Good morning, Ms. Troi. There is a gentleman here, with a delivery.”

“Send him up please.”

It was something she had ordered for the nursery, and when she went to admit the delivery Jean-Luc returned as well. He was therefore on hand to watch her unwrap the painting of a Betazed sunset, and hang it on the wall. 

“You seem to be feeling better today,” he commented. She'd been tired a lot, over the past weeks, though she hadn't allowed it to keep her down much.

“Are you going to go see Robert today, or do you perhaps have some free time right now to spend with me?” She collected the wrappings and carried them from the nursery to the recycling slot next to the replicator. He followed as he answered.

“I was thinking we might go to the beach today,” he said. “Spend a little time walking and talking? I'm not going back to France again until Saturday.”

“Let me throw a few things in a bag.”

With the padd, a towel and a couple of bottles of water in a tote bag, they left and caught one of the frequent rail cars to the public beach areas south of San Francisco proper. There was a certain luxury, she thought, in being able to simply be together without the extra layers of Starfleet and rank; neither one of them was identifiable as an officer at the moment. She took advantage of it, leaning against him as they rode along, and smiling because after his brief automatic anxiety at the overt display of familiarity, he settled in to enjoy her company, even letting his hand rest on her hip comfortably. No one took any notice of them whatsoever in the crowded car.

They got off at a designated stop and descended a long stairway to the beach. Once on the sand, both pairs of their shoes removed and in the bag as they wandered the sparsely-populated beach, they meandered together with the wet sand between their toes, dodging other people who were either relaxing or playing some beach game.

“I have something to tell you,” she said.

They were, she knew, so connected now that she needed neither tone of voice nor words to convey that the matter was serious. He was rolling up his sleeves and glanced at her calmly -- but she knew he was on alert.

The cloudless sky was the intense blue she remembered, and the cool breeze tempered the hot sun. She chose a barren patch of sand without inhabitants, tossed out the blanket, and they sat together -- she crossed her legs and took out the padd, set it to text display only, no audio, and inserted the isolinear module. She passed it to him without preamble. 

He spent enough time studying the contents that she lay back on the blanket and used the floppy wide-brimmed hat she had brought to cover her face. She was almost asleep when he spoke.

“Deanna.”

“I didn’t read it all,” she said, without looking at him -- she was enjoying the warm sun on her body, the blousy dark blue dress she wore absorbing the rays while protecting her from a burn. “I don’t have to. Don’t want to.”

“Where did this come from?” He was dead serious, wary, with a weight on his heart.

“It’s what Thomas left, when he showed up at our door. Before I appreciated exactly what that meant.” That Thomas had been there without first being announced by the attendant in the lobby of their exclusive, secure building should have told her there was more to his visit than just an attempt to see her. Jean-Luc had repelled him without question at the time due to the anxiety it had caused him -- he’d explained what should have happened, afterward.

“Do you think he was a messenger or the source?”

Deanna sat up again, shifting on the blanket to face him, and sat cross-legged again, putting the hat on her head. She fished the water out of the bag and took a drink, looking around casually to ensure no one was paying attention to them.

“It’s hard to say. He knew what it was. I could tell he was serious enough. But I think he was only a messenger. It’s what you and I talked about, before, I think.”

His understated frown actually concealed his immense displeasure. “You mean what we almost talked about.” He looked her in the eye, thinking, and she could almost hear his thoughts, even though he wasn’t projecting them. About the conspiracy some years before, and the resulting losses of officers he had known for years. About other times when an officer had been observed in questionable behavior, and he had to step in. They had discussed his frustrations with such things -- he preferred open communication, didn’t see the point of concealing motives or being manipulative -- an idealist, as he had been labeled. She'd known at the time that he had not told her everything, suspected that things requiring a higher security clearance than she had kept him from telling all, or perhaps he simply didn't want to alarm her with unproven suspicions.

“I know that the computer at the house is civilian, but there’s no way for me to verify a connection to other networks, or the absence of one.”

His head swiveled left, then right, and he leaned a little toward her. “Do you feel this is secure enough?”

“No one is even curious about us, or paying attention. So what do you think it all means?”

“Perhaps it means only that nothing is as simple as it seems.”

“You’re thinking about Ben Maxwell.” The ‘rogue’ captain had been right about the Cardassians smuggling weapons, but he languished in prison for his actions. Jean-Luc’s feelings about that situation had changed, over time. 

“Actually, I’m thinking about Will. Not his behavior toward you. His behavior as an officer -- he had a long career, you know. I begin to wonder about his real involvement in the _Pegasus_ incident, and about other incidents along the way. I have to wonder how many such incidents were labeled as such only because secrets were made public.” His frown deepened as his eyes went distant. “You told me that Nechayev was a cold, calculating person, no matter what she showed us. Her name is on the list. What, exactly, is this list? Are these people pawns? Or are they players in a larger game? What the hell is this, Deanna?”

“I don’t have answers for those questions. It’s why I simultaneously want to leave Starfleet, and also to return to shipboard duties to be as far from Command as possible,” she said quietly as a gull swooped overhead, keening. “It’s why I can’t relax. It’s why I want to talk to Data, and go meet Maddox -- Data said that Maddox is talking to him about helping him create another Soong-type android, again, and that Data is thinking about it, because he doesn’t want another repeat of what happened to Lal. I’m not sure we can trust Maddox, Jean-Luc. If Data allows him to access his code, we may not be able to trust Data. I don’t think I trust starship computers. It’s too easy to have subroutines monitoring what happens on a ship.”

He sat in surprise, saying nothing. 

“I think Nechayev found out about us because the computer logged our behavior -- I replicated your uniform in my quarters. I replicated mine in yours. I don’t think anyone told her anything. Because you’re right, Shelby wouldn’t have been able to guess from the minimal contact with us. Our own crew wouldn’t do it. We met with Ben after Dr. Carlson came for her visit.”

“You are saying there is a vast conspiracy -- those theories have been around forever, Deanna,” he said, struggling not to discard what she was saying outright. That their own computers would monitor such things was beyond anything she'd theorized before.

“I’ve seen more than I wanted to,” she said, sipping water and offering the bottle to him. “Will knew how to disconnect the sensors in his quarters. I asked him one time why there were some pieces on his table -- he had a panel open, and parts on the floor. He lied to me, something about doing a little maintenance without bothering anyone in operations. I later did a little research and discovered what all the parts meant. He had disabled video and audio recording capability within his quarters. It was peculiar, but it didn’t occur to me to question it much until later, after other peculiarities emerged. And then it was dangerous, obviously, to voice any suspicion while aboard the ship -- so I waited for an opportunity. You and I have not been planetside, together, in a long time. Not until Lavonia.”

"And we had other things to discuss, then." He began to feel angry -- but at the same time, he started to feel the dread. “I could be angry at you for not sharing your suspicions with me before. But it occurs to me that you knew you would have had difficulty convincing me that I should take you seriously. You’re only sharing this now because you have this information. Aren’t you?”

“I don’t think there is anything I can do, about anything,” she said, watching a few young men run by, ignoring them. “I’m not sure there is anything you can do, either. Because there really is no way to fight some nebulous conspiracy without creating another, is there?”

Jean-Luc stared out to sea and thought about what she’d showed him, what she had said, and the rumination started. 

“I sense sometimes when someone is not being honest.” She smiled at him, and instead of setting aside the impulse she touched his face -- leaned closer, and when his frustration ebbed, she continued. “I have met so many officers. So many people with other motives -- some of them are on that list. I want to trust but there are so few who can be trusted. But I’ve never had a reason to mistrust you.”

“So just the two of us, against the universe?” 

“Us, Beverly. Geordi. Mike. Data, unless we find a reason not to trust him. I hope he hasn't been compromised.” She gazed into his eyes, waiting while a few young women wandered by and then away again. “Ro Llaren returned to us because I informed her there were officers on active duty in the Maquis, and she disliked the idea of being manipulated -- she trusts you, as well. Most of our crew were unaware and honestly, openly engaged in Starfleet operations without artifice.”

“Most of,” he exclaimed. His mouth started to twist. “But not Will.”

“It feels like failure to me, in retrospect,” she said sadly. “But until I started to look at all the clues as clues, and put them together, I had no reason to question anything he did. I approached his emotional truth -- not the objective truth -- so it was easy for him to avoid tipping me off that he had other motives.”

“This is unacceptable,” he said stiffly -- Captain Picard all through and through. 

“I know. Let’s walk.”

She clung to his arm as they walked and he ruminated some more. At some point another mile down, she perched on a rock to rest, and watched him pace around her. Movement helped him, she knew. He came to a stop before her with crossed arms at last.

“We’re going to have a family, and we’re going to hold to our principles,” he said. “And we’re going to do what we can to expose double dealers.”

“It’s a long list,” Deanna said.

He acquired a mercenary smile. “I’m a stubborn man.”

“With an appropriate spirit animal,” she said with a grin. 

“You didn’t want to believe it was this bad, did you?” 

“Will told me he intended to protect me. That’s why he wanted to bond with me again. He didn’t tell me what he wanted to protect me from, however, and that concerns me -- especially since Thomas dropped this off and there’s no way to know why. I think that was when it really, finally, completely sunk in, that it’s this bad. I really want the Federation to be as you envision it, Jean-Luc -- more now than ever.” She put a hand over her abdomen.

He nodded, nostrils flaring, in that way they usually did when he was about to issue an order he didn’t want to give. “Perhaps I should have let you question Thomas when he showed up.”

Deanna gazed up at him for a moment, sensing his hesitation to follow through, and finally let him off the hook. “I’ll find a public terminal at the space station, and send him a message he’ll understand, to meet me.”

“Not alone.”

“No -- but I will probably have to appear to be alone. You, Data, and Mike, I think.”

A curt nod. “Let’s go home and invite them to dinner.”

“Beverly can babysit. We’ll meet on the roof of La Folie,” she said. 

Jean-Luc picked the bag up from where she’d dropped it in the sand. “Deanna, you have to come with me, when I interview, now.”

“One step at a time, please.” She kissed him on the cheek as he put his arm around her, and they started the slow walk back up the beach to the shuttle stop.


	44. Boogie Men, Occam's Razor, and Reasons Why

Their friends understood, too well. Geordi went straight-faced and leaned forward, his visor gleaming in the candlelight. “So what are we gonna do next?”

Mike crossed his arms -- he looked like the disapproving older brother she’d never had. Scowling, he glanced from Data to Geordi to Jean-Luc, and tilted his head. “We’re gonna bust heads,” he growled. 

“No.” Jean-Luc folded his hands on the tiny round table and glanced over his shoulder. They were in a corner of the rooftop garden, farthest from the dance floor, and no one was paying them any attention. 

“We’re going to be careful,” Deanna said. “I need to talk to Thomas one on one, to glean more information from him about where and how he got the information he gave me. And why. I think why is as important.”

“You believe there is something to be done about this.” Data spoke as quietly as all of them did, under the pulse of the music. It was hard to hear each other some of the time, but it was a good cover. 

“It’s true that if this is as big as the list suggests,” Jean-Luc gestured at the padd in the center of the table next to the platter of beer battered oysters and the pitcher of beer, “it will be challenging if not impossible. But we have an advantage.”

“It seems obvious that this network you describe has been a part of Starfleet for an extended period of time,” Data said. “There has been rumors of an organization within Starfleet called Section 31 since Starfleet’s inception.”

“I’ve heard about that,” Geordi said softly. “No one seems to want to mention them too loudly, ever. It’s like the boogie man. Hiding just around the corner in the shadows, never coming out into the light.”

“Do any of you know article forty-one, section thirty-one of the Starfleet charter?” Jean-Luc asked.

“It’s the one that allows for bending regulations in extreme circumstances to protect the Federation.” Mike shrugged a little. “I’ve read the charter, at different points. There’s a whole class on it at the Academy.”

“I can recite it,” Data said. “I suspect you do not believe that will be necessary at this time. I believe that section of the charter has protected us more than once, when there has been a violation of regulations on some of our missions.”

Jean-Luc sighed. “We’ve discussed this before, Data.”

“Yes, Cap -- Jean-Luc,” Data corrected. Unlike the rest of them, he wasn’t slumping in his seat. He hadn’t managed to master the less formal body language of a human. 

“I’d like your help, Data,” Deanna said. She leaned a little toward him, so her bare arm brushed the sleeve of the tan jacket he wore. “I’m frightened.”

Data’s pale eyes focused on her face. “You do not appear frightened, Deanna.”

She smiled fondly at him. “I’m frightened in the way that people can be, when there is a large scale disaster at hand that is unescapable. Like Sarjenka -- you remember her?”

“Yes. But if the situation you describe has been a part of Starfleet from its inception, it is not the same as a disaster -- it has been part of Starfleet by design.”

Geordi cocked his head. “Data, you realize that deception of other Starfleet personnel, on an ongoing basis, is lying to them? That labeling an ongoing situation an ‘extreme circumstance’ isn’t the same as what’s happened to us on the missions? There’s a problem if an officer is part of a secret organization within Starfleet and it’s not right to just sit back and let it continue.”

Deanna took Data’s hand and covered it with her other hand. “Has anyone altered your programming, Data? Anyone other than you, or Dr. Soong?”

“I have not yet begun to work with Mr. Maddox, if that is what you are asking, Deanna. I have not experienced any alterations beyond what I have chosen to alter.”

“Do you understand what’s at stake?” she asked softly. “If we are in Starfleet, following orders, and we do not have all the information -- you know Captain Picard does not believe in blindly following orders. If an admiral gives an order we want him to base his choices in what’s best for the Federation, but also in the principles that guide us. Data, I met officers who were clearly following orders while participating in a terrorist organization. They were committing acts of violence in violation of a treaty, and it isn’t right, Data.”

“They are defending their homes. Lieutenant Ro explained that to me.”

Deanna knew Data well enough not to let this ruffle her. He was impressive and smarter than any computer, about all manner of things, but he was still a machine himself. Occasionally it took a little more explaining to get him on the same page. He usually defaulted to trusting friends, unless there were more at stake. Ro had obviously simplified the situation when talking to him.

“Data, the officers were not from the worlds in the Demilitarized Zone in every case -- some of them are there under orders, and some of those who left their posts to participate in protest are also not from those worlds. There are many motives for what people are doing in the Maquis. But some of them are being ordered to do things, and they are obeying because they are ordered to -- not because they believe in what the Maquis are doing. They are participating in the Maquis to alter the course of Maquis operations to the advantage of the Federation -- being manipulative. It would be as though Maddox told you he wanted to give you different colored eyes, then once you were in his lab he turned you off and also changed your skin, your hair, and programmed you to kill your friends. The officers come to say they want to help, and then they skew information and even provide false information, to redirect the efforts of the cells.”

“You understand why I do not like the Cardassians,” Jean-Luc put in. “And yet, I uphold the treaty. My personal feelings are not relevant -- if the Federation continues as intended old enemies should become allies, not continue to be enemies. We can’t hold grudges and make progress, Data. I may understand and sympathize with the Maquis but they are going about things the wrong way. Taking short cuts that compromise our principles sets us back.”

“Would you give up your home, if you were in a similar situation?” Data asked. “I understood that your home is a part of your identity.”

Jean-Luc’s face settled into angry, frustrated lines, not at Data, but at the situation. “My home is very important to me, yes. But it is not so important as the lives of my family, and homes can be re-established, rebuilt -- there is no question for me. If my home were a world on the Demiltarized Zone I would retreat and take my family to safety. Perhaps make plans to work toward returning, at some point.”

“Not unlike what you are actually doing,” Deanna put in. 

“At some point my children will play in the same yard I did,” he said.

“Then you are pregnant,” Data said with a satisfied smile, eyeing the fruit filled drink in front of Deanna. 

She rolled her eyes. “Please don’t tell everyone that.”

“So when are you meeting Thomas?” Geordi asked. He picked up the half empty beer stein in front of him. 

“I’m going to Mission Street Station in the morning, to find a public terminal and arrange to meet him. I intend to use a bench on the Embarcadero, overlooking the bay. Near the statue of the humpback whales, in Rincon Park. There are places you can be, without being obvious.”

“Are you using an alias?” Geordi asked.

“No. But you’ll make sure I have a portable dampening field. We’ll move from the meeting place to a coffee shop where there will be a field already in place, because it will be in Jean-Luc’s bag. Data will be playing the piano, and Geordi will read the news outside the window. And he won’t recognize any of you unless he gives you a reason to intervene.”

“Are you in, Data?” Mike asked.

“I do not yet have enough information to come to conclusions about the nature of the threat you describe,” he said calmly. “However, it is likely that the only way to get more information would be to pursue the only lead presenting itself. I am in.”

“Thank you, Data,” Jean-Luc said warmly.

“You are welcome. Perhaps you will name the child after me?”

“Data….”

\--------------

 

Deanna strolled down the sidewalk on the grassy lawns along the Embarcadero, enjoying the day -- just another woman in a white dress wearing a big sun hat, with a shopping bag dangling from her shoulder, tucked under her arm. She kept a vapid smile pasted in place and focused forward, on statuary along the way, on other people walking the other direction. Most exchanged a small smile and a nod. It was a sunny day on Earth, and there was nothing to fear.

Thomas was already there. She sensed him anticipating and watching her approach long before she saw him. She wondered what he was doing on Earth -- he had been on a starship, continuing where he had left off. It was definitely him; enough time had passed that he was unique, less like Will Riker than ever. 

He wore a navy jacket and dark gray slacks, and a typical Riker grin, and all that did was frustrate her. When she came up to the bench he rose to his feet, and his expression cooled significantly when she didn’t respond in kind. 

“Hello,” she said, coming to a halt. “Shall we walk a little? I feel a bit restless today.”

“I was surprised to hear from you. The captain made it sound like you were going into seclusion and never coming back.” He reached as if about to put a hand on her back, but she stepped away, and after the dodge he didn’t try again. His manner cooled even more.

“I regret that I was unable to speak to you, but Alexander was so upset, it took me a while before he would calm himself. By then Jean-Luc had already told you to leave.”

They strolled down the walk slowly. He followed when she made the casual right turn on a crossing sidewalk, toward the row of shops where the coffee shop waited. Deanna let her footsteps weave idly as they went, so as to appear not to have a real destination. 

“What is he to you, now?” Thomas asked.

She thought about their correspondence, since he had left the _Enterprise_ \-- he had sometimes talked about visiting, but it had never happened. Now that everything was calm she could sense that his feelings for her had changed, over time, just as everything usually did. 

“Do you mean Jean-Luc?”

“You live there with him, yes?”

“We are engaged. I suppose you haven’t talked to Will, then?”

Thomas became angry, then. “I heard in the news media that something had happened -- he assaulted someone?”

“Many, many someones. He tried to rape me, a few months ago.” She said it with all the emotion she might use in mentioning the color she’d chosen for the curtains in the spare room.

“Idiot,” Thomas mumbled. 

“Evidently he thought I would forgive him, once we were bonded again, and I couldn’t help myself. It’s over, in any case. I have better things to do than think about that. Are you stationed on Earth, now?”

At that, he went silent. They were passing the salon, and the coffee shop was on the right -- she looked up at the sign over the door as if passingly interested, gave her head a nod toward it, and he followed her in. Mid morning there were few people around -- Data, wearing a blond wig and fedora, sat at the upright piano in the far corner plunking idle tunes quietly as if bored and amusing himself. Near the door, Jean-Luc had an open book flat on the table and an espresso at his elbow; he was seated across from Leila, who was his cover, that and the terrible brown toupee perched on his head. Leila feigned boredom and openly watched them come in, before turning back to Jean-Luc and whining in low tones about his failure to consider her feelings, and why couldn’t they visit Japan while they were on Earth? Jean-Luc sighed and ignored her to read and sip.

Deanna chose a table at a window, putting her back to Data and the piano. Outside on the landing over the water, she knew Geordi had to be sitting there, but didn’t bother to look. She ordered coffee from the young waitress who trotted over and then asked if there were any croissants. There weren’t, and the waitress left to get their drinks.

“Did you look at it?” He saved her the trouble of asking -- good.

“I read the list. Too bad there wasn’t any way to tell what it’s a list of,” she murmured. “I suppose I was intended to be frightened or intimidated, or something? That’s not why I wanted to see you.”

He fell for it. Surprised, he stared across the tiny table at her. “Really?”

She gave him an insulted glance. “You came in without any trouble getting past the front desk -- it’s a secure building. What were you there to do? Why did you do it? Not because you were stupid enough to think I would go with you, or that I have any feelings for you any more, surely. I want you to promise me you’ll let me be. Leave me alone.”

It didn’t exactly hurt his feelings, but he was disappointed. The waitress brought a cup of coffee for him, plus a small tray with condiments, and left a macchiato in front of her. He glanced at her with some regret.

“If that’s what you want.” He picked up the mug. “I’m sorry he hurt you, Deanna. If I had known I would have done something.”

“Did you even have any contact with him since you left?” Deanna sipped, and glanced out the window finally. No one out there, at least not in her direct line of sight, but there was a pelican sitting on a piling.

“Not really. Look -- you need to pay attention, to what I gave you,” he said quietly. 

“Why?” She sounded somewhat miffed at the suggestion.

“I didn’t give it to you for no reason, you know. I risked a lot to get it to you. If Dad finds out he’ll kill me.”

She raised her eyes -- didn’t have to fake being startled. “Dad?”

Chagrined, he grimaced at his coffee mug. “I contacted him. It was… Well, it was stupid. Will said he’d patched up with him some, and didn’t say anything more, and I wasn’t going to, but you know, he’s the only family I had.”

“Other than your mother.”

Thomas’ blue eyes came up at that. “You know?”

“That she’s not dead, yes.”

Thomas flinched. “It wasn’t what -- she might as well have been. She hated Dad. She abandoned me. I was really, really hurt, it comes out as anger, you know, and so…. Anyway, Dad recruited me for a few jobs, and it ended up I left Starfleet to do the last one, and now…. And then I found out they were going to recruit you. I told Will he’d better not let them.”

Deanna stared at him as if he were the stupidest person on Earth. “I’m a Starfleet officer, I don’t want to do -- recruit me for what? Tom, what are you really saying? What jobs were you doing?”

“You don’t have to play innocent,” he murmured. “Kate was worried about you. After she spoke to you she contacted me, not Kyle. She told me to give you the information. She gave it to me. She said to tell you to walk away, have your baby, have a perfect life. Be a good citizen.”

Deanna laughed at him. “You think I could ever be just a good citizen.”

Tom stared at her seriously. “I’m not kidding. This isn’t some little game of detective on the holodeck -- you need to look at that list again and realize that if your name goes on it, you’re a slave, Deanna. They own you. They’ll make someone you care about disappear if you don’t do as they say. Or you will.”

She didn’t have to manufacture the look of disbelief. “If that’s what I was supposed to understand, maybe there should have been a label on the list? This is the Federation -- we don’t do that sort of thing!”

Tom’s wistful smile irritated her a little. “You’ve changed a lot. And I know you don’t believe that -- idealism isn’t your habit.”

“Yes, I’ve had some very hard lessons, that disabused me of any idealistic notions that I ever nurtured,” she intoned. “Your twin was my instructor in that particular school of hard knocks. Starfleet did the rest.”

His face hardened, briefly. Leaning forward, he considered for a moment, then said, “You have people trying to protect you, risking their lives to do it. Don’t throw them away.”

“Why not risk their lives putting a stop to it, whatever ‘it’ is? It’s wrong, threatening people that way. Forcing them to do things. Officers volunteer to sacrifice their lives in the name of the Federation -- whatever this is, it doesn’t need to be that way.”

Tom leveled an even, serious look at her for a moment, and picked up his cup. He stood and left the coffee shop. She watched him go, and sat waiting until she sensed him moving farther and farther away -- and then vanish from her considerable range entirely. Then she moved to sit at the table with Leila and Jean-Luc. 

“I think it would have been better if you had finished reviewing everything,” Jean-Luc said. “But it was quite illuminating just the same. We should go now.”

“Please throw away the hair piece and never wear one again.” 

He tore it off, as he rose from the table with the book in hand. “Let’s go.”

Deanna paid for her coffee, and Thomas’, and she walked out with Leila, Jean-Luc, Data, and then Geordi and Mike came from either direction, joining them on the sidewalk heading away from the cafe. Jean-Luc tossed the hair piece in a trash receptacle as they went, but continued to wear the ridiculous pasted-on mustache. They turned off the pavement and descended a slope to a picnic table, where Beverly waited with a small box. She handed around plates with sandwiches and an apple to each of them as they sat down.

“How’d it go?”

Jean-Luc frowned at the contents of the sandwich he’d been given, apparently turkey on rye. Deanna pushed her roast beef at him, and pulled his plate toward her. He nodded in gratitude. “It clarified that the list of names may be a list of recruits for us, rather than just a list of sinners. It will take careful screening, however.”

“That’s hopeful. Did anything else important come up?”

“He was transported away, beyond my range,” Deanna said. It was no secret to this circle of her friends that she generally sensed people she knew well over considerable distances. “He gave me the information as a favor -- Kate Pulaski sent it to me. She told me to stay clear, warned me.”

“He knew you’re pregnant,” Jean-Luc said quietly. “No one other than Beverly should have.”

“She logged it in her records, so the computer on the _Farragut_ knew,” Deanna said, ignoring the surprise from the rest of them. “So the Starfleet records reflect it.”

“Geordi, Data - is there any way to find subroutines intended to send information to specific people, in a computer?”

“If there’s something like that there’ll be another one to tell someone we found the subroutine,” Geordi exclaimed over his tuna sandwich.

“Even if we created a copy of everything on the holodeck and isolated it from the rest of the ship?” Deanna asked.

Everyone at the table stared at her. Mike grinned first. “Just a counselor, my ass,” he scolded.

“I was on the _Enterprise_ for years. It was very educational.” Deanna glanced at Data. “The holodeck created Moriarty, it can certainly create a copy of the main computer core and all the programming it contains.”

“If I am to take another starship, it will be free of spy subroutines that send personal information to anyone,” Jean-Luc exclaimed, the anger he felt about this eminently obvious. 

“We will work on it, sir,” Data said. He alone sat without food, hands in his lap. “Although it would be easier with access to an independent computer lab.”

“Something that verifiably has no connection whatsoever to Starfleet’s network?” Deanna asked. “We should go to see my mother.”

Everyone stared at her, again. “Your mother has a computer capable of mimicking a starship’s main core,” Jean-Luc half-asked, clearly disbelieving. “Do you realize what that would require?”

“My mother has tricked you into believing there is no way she could have any interest in such a thing, so obviously the computer that she has -- which is up to the task, yes -- is perfect for the job.” Deanna smirked at him. “I suppose you believed that I was able to steal a shuttle at sixteen without any computer experience whatsoever? And if for some reason her computer doesn’t work, she’ll upgrade it. Underestimate the Fifth House at your peril, Captain.”

“I stand corrected, then. I suppose that the journey to Betazed will have to be carefully timed -- the class you teach is how long, Geordi?”

“I have five weeks to go. It’s just a single unit course -- Data could go ahead of us, get things started. You didn’t have anything lined up yet, right, Data?”

Data turned to Jean-Luc. “I can quietly take an extended tour of the outer Federation worlds, and abandon the tour at Betazed.”

“I’ve been talking up some of the medical conferences at work,” Beverly said. “There are actually conferences on Betazed on an ongoing basis, thanks to the University of Betazed -- I could arrange to attend ten of them, if I needed to.”

“Leila and I haven’t been to Betazed ever,” Mike said. “I hear there’s a ton of sightseeing to be done. How much company does your mother like to have at a shot?”

Deanna snorted. “She has three houses. The one in the capitol, Elnara, has twelve bedrooms, a holodeck, four dining rooms of different sizes, two patios, and three yards. She’d be happy to let you have whichever room you like, on one of three floors. I could house another five people at my own house, six if I throw out Cousin Millie.”

“No need for that. I’m sure we can throw a mattress on a floor, if it comes down to it,” Jean-Luc said. “Or, perhaps there are rentals, or hotels?”

Unable to stand it any more, Deanna reached across and tore the fake mustache off his face. “I can tell Beverly didn’t help you with that. It looks completely fake.”

“Are we really sure we all want to jump into this with both feet?” Beverly asked, soberly. 

They all spent a few moments looking around at each other, contemplating, and Data was the first to speak. “I have continued to consider the ramifications of the situation, Beverly. There are things we cannot explain, if what Deanna says is not true -- if the only record of Deanna’s pregnancy was your medical record of her after you examined her on board the _Farragut_ , and the only record of an intimate relationship between them were replicator records of obtaining uniforms in each other’s quarters, it argues strongly that there is in fact a subroutine in the Federation network that is invading the privacy of Starfleet personnel. I do believe the captain when he says that he did not mention anything in his logs. And I very much doubt that any of us would have said anything to other personnel.”

“Occam’s Razor,” Geordi said. 

“If the computer is the simplest of answers,” Beverly said. “Your mother runs around with admirals, Deanna. Is it possible that she let something slip? Did she know something was going on? You did spend time with her on Lavonia.”

“Even if that explains how the fleet admiral found out, it does nothing to explain how Kate knew before I called. Mother has nothing to do with anyone at Starfleet Medical,” Deanna exclaimed. “It doesn’t explain how Thomas passed along a message from Kate, telling me she knows I’m pregnant. I was not, when I called her. Mother doesn’t know I’m pregnant.”

“I’m not certain I would be able to settle for a life in a world where I know my privacy is continually at risk,” Geordi said, and Mike and Leila both nodded.

“We’ll continue as we have been,” Jean-Luc said. “We meet away from cameras and computers, to discuss actual plans. We bring the rest of the people we trust into the loop as needed. Gather information and proceed slowly, make no sudden moves.”

“I’ll work on a way to circumvent surveillance,” Geordi said. “Without tipping anyone off.”

“I will begin my vacation, if you would request your mother’s assistance?”

“She’s on her way here, Data. If you leave in four days, we can make the arrangements in person.”

Jean-Luc turned to Geordi. “In the meantime, we have a house computer for you to examine, for invasive subroutines. If we’re somehow free of such things, what do you know about firewalls?”

“If you take them back to the house, I’ll pick up beer on the way home, and replicate the snacks. We can use a poker game for a cover,” Deanna said. 

“Plus poker is fun,” Mike said.

“And I want to see the nursery,” Leila put in. “Get a few ideas for ours.”

Deanna exchanged a grin with Beverly, but within seconds, it turned into a struggle to maintain -- Deanna shook her head, her eyes filling with tears, and faced Jean-Luc.

“One more reason to do something,” he said softly.


	45. No, Seriously, What About Baby's Ass Pink?

“Well, you’re safe,” Geordi announced, returning from the tiny hall closet where the house computer lived. 

Everyone looked up from the card table with a smile. “Safe?” Deanna asked.

“Your house computer is only connected when you make a call, or get one, and I can’t find any hint of anything in the code that indicates your communications are sent to secondary recipients,” the engineer said, returning to the empty chair at the table. “I disconnected it manually before I checked all the code, too. I added the firewall and also set up an alarm, to alert you the minute someone tries to alter the code.”

Data looked up from dealing cards around the table to them. “Tomorrow I will help Geordi put a dampening field around the perimeter, to ensure there will be no monitoring of other kinds.”

“Then I guess this can be headquarters,” Beverly said.

Deanna gave Jean-Luc a sad little smile -- he was feeling weary and yet, determined. It wasn’t his usual, this extended socializing, even if they were on this self-appointed mission together with their former fellow officers. “We should all meet tomorrow, then, after lunch, after we’re done securing the perimeter?”

Mike waved at the pile of chips in front of Deanna. “You’re just saying that because you’re winning!”

“She’s saying it because we’ve been here for hours,” Leila exclaimed, giving her husband a light shove on the shoulder. “First clue -- they put Alexander to bed an hour ago? Second -- it’s dark outside?” She waved at the transparent wall, at the darkness and the faint glitter of stars above the less-faint light from the windows of other tall buildings.

“You can win it back -- let’s get going, Wes,” Beverly exclaimed. “I’m going to stop in the lobby on the way out and find out if there are other vacancies in the building. It’ll probably save us a lot of time. Most of these apartments are family-sized, that’s all we really need.”

“Getting tired of the hotel?” Deanna watched the doctor do her part, collecting glasses and bowls and napkins, as everyone picked up after themselves and then some. Data focused on returning all the chips and the cards to their tray. 

“I’m tired of the hotel,” Wes said. “She’s defaulting to what’s easy -- we haven’t really looked for a place very hard, between her project and spending time with you guys. And I guess she’s okay with me staying with her, which is handy since I’m attending the Daystrom Institute Annex here in town, starting next week.”

“I’m defaulting to what’s secure,” Beverly insisted sternly. “And we’re having Geordi and Data over for dinner, the minute we move in.”

“Maybe you should go into private security,” Deanna said with a grin. 

“And you could go into home decoration, if you’re done with the counseling gig,” Leila said as she returned from the recycler. “ Really liking what you’re doing with the place, especially the nursery. Come on, Michael, we’re half across the city from here and we need a cab.”

Deanna rose to give hugs and thank each of them, and to see them off, while Jean-Luc put chairs back where they belonged and folded the table legs to roll it away to one of the spare rooms. He took the poker set off to a closet as well, and when she finally turned from watching the front door slide closed behind Data, the last to go, she found him standing and waiting just a few feet behind her.

“What?” she asked softly, coming to him. He was tired, but thinking, about all kinds of things judging from the confusion of emotions going on -- some of it had to do with their friends, and the situation at hand, but something else was going on. 

“I can’t help but wonder if you might be better off without me,” he murmured as she reached him and began the process of insinuating herself into his arms while simultaneously removing his clothing. The shirt was easy; he had a number of those loosely-draped pullovers he would wear, thanks to her shopping trips and lack of foresight in giving her instruction to purchase anything else. She’d brought home all kinds of variations on that theme, in light colors, and each day he would put on another with a wry glance her way as if questioning her taste, but wearing it anyway, to make her happy. 

“Jean-Luc,” she chided, using the shirt she’d just pulled off over his head as a rope around his neck to pull him toward the bedroom, down the hall. 

“I don’t like any of this,” he exclaimed, letting her drag him along.

“You’re imagining perhaps that they are recruiting me because of my association with you, and not because of my ability to perform Betazoid Mind Magic, or perhaps the fact that I’m the daughter of a political figure on my homeworld and thus somehow represent a vulnerability of hers?” She dropped the shirt on the floor, after bringing him to a halt at the foot of the bed, and yanked open his pants, shoving them down his legs. “Perhaps I should be feeling guilty for taking advantage of you -- seducing you so you’ll use your influence to protect me?”

Now he was groaning. She giggled at his overdramatic roll of the eyes. “I still don’t like any of it. Don’t like being paranoid.”

“Warranted fear is not the definition of paranoia.” She let her fingertips patrol the contours of his body slowly, gently, and noted with satisfaction his response -- it drew his attention from the ruminations that usually kept him in books or wandering in deep thought each night. 

“How are you?” Rather than respond in kind, he pressed his palm against her abdomen in that gentle way that had become his habit. 

“I’m just as pregnant as I was yesterday. I feel fine. Better than I did yesterday, truthfully, since things are looking up a little -- nice to know I can expect privacy at home.”

“Since we have privacy….” He wrapped a curl around his finger, let it uncurl slowly. His salacious smile had to be addressed, so she pressed hers against it.

She kissed him lightly while his fingers worked through her hair, and let her hands continue down his body -- he held her head gently and moaned as her fingers stroked along his erection. They knew each other’s preferences well enough, by now. Knew how to touch and please, how much pressure to use -- it helped immensely that whatever it was they were building between them sang to life at a touch. Thinking about his hand on her breast, plucking at the nipple, could make it happen. 

He had, one day last week, come home one afternoon with new sheets and a deep forest green cover for the bed that felt buttery soft on bare skin -- it made rolling around in them an even more sensual experience than before. He finished pushing the dress she wore over her head, bent at the knees, and swept her around, off her feet, tossing her into the center of the bed. 

Laughing, she dodged as he leaped after her, and squealed in delight when he caught her. She knew the rooms were soundproof -- she’d tested that herself, one day, when she and Alexander had been shouting Klingon opera at the top of their lungs and run into the bedroom for something, only to discover she heard nothing at all. Jean-Luc had chuckled when she mentioned it. Sly boy.

He grabbed her arm and pulled her over to him, but once she stopped struggling and relaxed, he went gentle, kissed her with all the love he continued to feel for her -- there was an awe there too, as if he couldn’t quite believe it was all true. Perhaps, given everything he’d been through, that made sense. The shadow of the Nexus still dogged him, once in a while, in his dreams. 

He made her call his name, before indulging himself -- he liked that she enjoyed many positions, didn’t require any discussion beforehand, and she was able to provide immediate approval or disapproval when he thought about it. She came again, with him, and lay panting with him, chest to chest, holding each other with her hair wild around them. 

“I knew you were what I needed. Even if I wasn’t quite certain why,” he murmured as he sat up. “Computer, fill the bathtub with hot water.” They had saved as a preset the exact temperature agreeable to both of them -- like so many other things in their home that they had altered to taste. 

“I think Marie is right.” Deanna shoved herself over to the edge of the bed and headed for the bathroom first, walking slowly with a swing of the hip, perfectly aware of how he watched her naked body. 

“Given the context I’m afraid to ask,” he said with a wry tone. He came in a moment after she did, as the water ran into the bathtub and steamed up the mirror. 

Deanna sat on the towel she’d folded on the edge of the tub and leaned to test the temperature. “She said that Picard men tended to be impulsive, when they feel very strongly about something.”

He was taken aback, disapproving -- his chin came up, and when she looked directly at his face, she saw he was frowning. 

“You don’t agree.”

Jean-Luc softened, but not completely. “I understand what you’re saying, and why she would assume that. I don’t agree that being with you is impulsive. Certain aspects of how we got to where we are, yes -- but I was trying not to rush you out of respect for you, not because I was uncertain. I couldn’t say no to you, however, so that restraint was completely lost.”

“So, more like what Robert said, when he let Rene stay with us.”

“I was afraid Robert would be furious with us, you know.” He hadn’t talked about what Robert had said to him, when he had beamed down to return his nephew to the arms of his parents. She only knew that he had been determined to face his brother and sister-in-law, to take full responsibility and apologize, and had returned feeling immense relief. Robert and Marie had gotten a hotel room in San Francisco in anticipation of meeting them when Jean-Luc had contacted them from the _Farragut_ to inform them of what had happened. 

“You thought he should be,” Deanna said. “You were shocked that he wasn’t.”

Jean-Luc stepped into the bathtub. There were contoured backrests with cushioned head pillows, and he settled into one of them, watching her swing her feet over the side and shift from the edge to settle next to him in the water. 

“He should have been,” Jean-Luc said. “But he accepted it -- he was concerned about Rene, more than anything else. Concerned, saddened, and… part of it was for me. He said that -- “

Deanna waited, while he turned away and stared at the towel rack for a moment. This was true to his usual. He would take a while to think about an intense experience, then talk to her to process it. 

“He said he didn’t want me to have second thoughts about having children, because of what happened,” he confessed at last. 

She nodded, thinking about all the parents who had come through her office door over the past seven years. “Parents face the mortality of their children, sometimes,” she said. “Marie said that Rene almost died when he was a toddler -- he nearly choked on something he put into his mouth. A very common thing to happen.”

Jean-Luc stared at her for a few moments across the surface of the steaming water, and his sigh rippled it briefly. “Is there a class? A book I could read? This isn’t…. Every time something comes up I feel like I’m seventeen again, sitting at the helm in that damned simulation crashing the ship again.”

“What makes you think Robert and Marie had any help before they started?” Deanna rubbed her toes up and down his calf. “Parents learn with the first child how to be parents. Of course there are books -- thousands of parenting books have been written, over the centuries, since man invented books. But being a parent is a relationship, not math or navigation, or even ethics.”

“You’re going to make me do it the hard way,” he said with a sigh.

“No, sweet man, I am going to do the hard parts. You get to watch me waddle, cramp, bloat, and go into labor. Among other things. Something tells me you’ll be fine.”

He wanted to growl about it, but the glare subsided. “We could use -- “

“I don’t think so. Have you ever, in our time aboard the _Enterprise_ , heard of anyone using an incubator?”

He stared at her with new concern, then. “This… thing between us, does it mean -- when you go into labor that I will feel what you feel?”

She laughed at him, shifting in the tub to lean forward against him. Kissing his cheek, she reached over his shoulder for a washcloth. “It’s not as though it will be as bad as assimilation, Jean-Luc.”

“Perhaps….”

“We agreed we wanted children. Are you changing your mind?”

“No,” he said immediately, refocusing. “I didn’t really think this all the way through, however.“

“Jean-Luc. Stop -- I know you don’t have all of it planned out, because no one ever does, and now I get to remind you yet again, you need to stop overthinking things. It’s part of the experience to figure this out. You’re doing fine.”

He smiled, just a little. “All right.”

Deanna gave him a whimsical smile and abandoned the pretense of washing, leaning in to be nose to nose. “When I get around to your performance review, I won’t dock you for feeling unprepared -- it’s common to feel that way, as a new father. I’d even go so far as to call it normal. Let me get you a towel.”

He recovered somewhat as they dried off, and she brushed out her hair. When they were in bed, her hair braided, the transparent aluminum rendered opaque -- she found it too difficult to adjust to sleeping in a ‘fish bowl’ -- they lay quietly together under the covers. 

“I feel fortunate, to have this chance, to be a father. I only hope I'm up to the job.”

Deanna slid the few inches through the sheets to touch him, to reassure him. “The only real requirement to be a father is love. I appreciate so much that you want to do it right, or do it well… but please just be with me and enjoy this as much as we can? I’m trying to not think about -- everything. Set it aside when we’re home like this.”

“I appreciate that. Hopefully I can do the same.” He brought her hand to his lips to kiss her fingers. “Étienne?”

“You said Laurent, before."

"You've changed your mind about the nursery how many times?"

"As many times as we've changed our minds about when to actually get married, I think." 

He did enjoy bickering. She did enjoy making him this happy. It helped her relax finally to ease into sleep, though for a while he held her so tightly he made it difficult to breathe.

“I don’t suppose,” he whispered, just as she nearly fell asleep, “you came to any conclusions about the wedding?”

Her eyes snapped open again -- not that she saw anything in the darkness. “Well… that boat Geordi was talking about, the HMS Victory? I did a little research. It appears to be popular for wedding rentals.”

“You want to be married on a boat?”

“It’s a beautiful boat, and I love the sea. It has a ship captain, they can perform weddings. And we can have some reassurance that the only people who will be present are the ones we allow on the boat. Mother won’t be able to bring five hundred of her close, personal friends. Why let a little seasickness stand in the way of such a thing?”

He snorted at it.

“You may think I’m exaggerating, but I assure you, five hundred would be her showing a great deal of restraint. She once invited the entire adult population of a city to a party.”

Rather than let his anxiety spiral out of control imagining that, he refocused on wedding details. “Have you chosen a dress?”

“I have some for you to look at, in the morning.”

“I’m not sure about the timing… if we send Data away to Betazed, to play with your mother’s computer….”

“We can all do the trip over the weekend, can’t we? My class meets on Tuesday evening, so does Geordi’s. Have you decided who your best man will be?”

“I was going to ask Data to do it, but I’m not sure if Beverly was serious and I’d rather not hurt her feelings.”

“Jean-Luc, I can’t believe you.” He was actually serious -- she wondered if Beverly confused him that often with her teasing. 

“I imagine the real question is who wants to wear the tuxedo.”

Deanna sighed. His fingers tightened ever-so-slightly on her abdomen. “That depends, I think, on whether the tuxedos or the bridesmaids’ dresses are baby’s ass pink.”

“I thought you wanted sapphire blue?”

She stifled the giggle. He was starting to feel frustrated, as he had throughout the debate she’d had with Beverly during the first two hands of poker earlier in the evening. Beverly had done it solely to tease him. “I’m sorry. I’ll stop teasing now. I know exactly which dress to get them. We’ll go to the store Friday morning.”

He sighed audibly. “Finally.”

“Frankly, I just want to get it done so we can all move on to talk about other things. I’ve already started to collect things for the nursery. I noticed you did as well.”

“Did you like the horse?”

“You may have to hold him upright on it for about a year, until he’s able to rock on his own, you know.”

“I’m told you have to do most everything for a child, for quite a few months.”

She reached out in the darkness; her hand landed gently on his head. She stroked his scalp, down the back of his head, and caressed the back of his neck. “I love it when you’re this happy, Jean-Luc."

"I've never been this happy," he murmured. "I love you, Deanna."

He rested his head on her shoulder and fell asleep. It didn't help her fall asleep, but she refused to move him. She closed her eyes and let his breath play across her bare skin, loving him, refusing to think about anything but being his wife and watching him learn to be a father. She thought of how comfortable he was with Alexander now, and how mentioning her mother didn't frustrate him any longer. 

"Lucky boy," she whispered. "Lucky me."

"Engage," Jean-Luc murmured. She grinned at it.

"Okay. But only for a few more days...."


	46. Where No Water Buffalo Has Gone Before

Deanna braced herself in the door. The blast of wind hitting her in the face freed more of her hair from the pins; if she didn’t get there soon, she would have more of a wind-blasted Troi than an inverse Picard.

“Maybe we should have done this while it was still in the dock,” Mother exclaimed. She brushed imaginary dust from the front of the gown she wore -- she was up to something, Deanna decided, basing it on the compliant way Mother had gone along to the shop, been fitted for the bridesmaid’s dress of choice, accepted Beverly as the maid of honor without complaint. 

Was it any wonder she saw spies in the curtains, when she had a mother who continually reinvented herself and left her only daughter guessing constantly?

The deck swayed the other way, and knees bent -- Leila was good at it. Beverly tried to look nonchalant. The sapphire strapless looked great on her. On all of them, in fact. Leila had been enthusiastic about it. Mother had commented that it looked plain, and said nothing more. If she had really disliked it the monologue would have been ongoing.

“Let’s go, they’re waiting,” Beverly exclaimed, dodging one of the lanterns hanging from the ceiling on hooks. 

Deanna carefully held the railings while climbing the steps out of the captain’s cabin, which they’d used for a changing room. The dress she wore was a white gown, with an embroidered corset, a low-plunging back and a long skirt with just a slight gather at the small of the back. She’d opted out of a veil of any kind, but twined small white roses into her hair.

Once at the top of the steps, she hesitated as the ship swayed again, then rolled -- the crew were working the sails, the ship was well under way, and the chill of the Atlantic raised goosebumps on her arms. They were supposed to be out to sea for two full days. Deanna could tell Jean-Luc and the others were starting to worry. Just a short ceremony, she told herself, and they could all head down to the Great Cabin to drink champagne and get out of the wind.

“I’ve got to stop having ideas,” Deanna muttered to herself, setting out across the expanse of wood plank toward the quarter deck. It was a beautiful clear day, and she did her best to completely ignore the view to either side, focusing on the deck in front of her as she made her way toward the waiting wedding.

Everyone was standing, if only because it was the only way to avoid sliding to one side or the other when the ship rolled. There were more than a dozen guests -- the fleet admiral had, against all expectation, showed up, as had Captain Holloway. They were two of the scattering of uniforms present. Robert, Marie and Rene were in their finest and standing with several former crew, including Ro Llaren and Guinan. Wes was grinning like a lunatic. Jean-Luc’s friends were few, thanks to time and the hazards of Starfleet, but his old friend Louis had made the journey from the lost continent of Atlantis to be there as well.

Mother’s current husband, whom Deanna had met for the first time just forty-eight hours ago, looked vaguely uncomfortable. Fred was human, from a lunar colony, and seemed to be in a daze. That made sense, given Mother’s usual headlong approach. The poor man had probably met Mother three days ago.

Jean-Luc had debated and finally opted for the dress uniform, and Data, Mike, and Geordi had followed suit. The uniform had changed again, just in the time they had been on Earth -- now the dress uniform had a white jacket, the usual black slacks, and a gray undershirt. Except for the captain’s uniform, which was all white and gold trim, which was fine -- he wore white well, especially now that he had been getting enough sun to have more color than he had when they were shipboard. 

At the end of the short line of groomsmen stood Alexander -- no uniform for him, he had to settle for a black suit and a single white carnation on the lapel. He stood tall -- taller than he’d been just a few months ago, Mother insisted. It was true. He was now shoulder-height, to Deanna, and still eating like any three human children. The grin he wore had been there since that morning, when they had transported to London to take the shuttle to Portsmouth, to board the Victory. He watched her approach along with everyone else and radiated joy.

Deanna ignored the chatter behind her -- Mother was complaining about something, and Leila was responding -- and focused on making it to the wedding without falling down the deck as it rolled. She reached the groom without incident and smiled. It wasn’t as though she could help it -- he was so happy to see her, so in the moment, and she was caught up in it with him. 

The ship’s captain started to speak, and she tore her attention from Jean-Luc just enough to listen for the prompts. The civil ceremony was straightforward and the costumed captain officious and succinct, without flowery turns of phrase, and so before she could really think about it, it was finished, he kissed her with the brevity of a man who hated to perform in public, and people were applauding. 

And then the ship started another roll, but this one continued and the deck went steeper than before, and then she was in Jean-Luc’s arms almost by default as he braced -- the boots were better for this than her heeled sandals.

“All right?” He kept his hands on her arms to steady her. 

“Mr. Homn is ready with the champagne,” Mother sang out happily. Deanna shook her head -- there were kitchen staff to serve them. Mr. Homn was probably in a corner banging the damned gong.

On the way to the Great Cabin she had Jean-Luc’s arm around her to keep her upright, and their friends surrounded them, laughing, pitching ‘rice substitute’ (whatever that meant, Beverly had brought it by the bucket and claimed tradition) in the air to shower them with it.

“What kind of custom is it, pitching things at the bride and groom?” She wasn’t expecting an answer, just expressing annoyance at the sprinkling of tiny objects lodging in her high-piled hair, but Data was right on Jean-Luc’s heels and started to speak over the laughter from the bridesmaids and Alexander’s high-pitched excited demands for the garter toss. 

“Throwing grain at a wedded couple was historically a way of blessing them with prosperity, or fertility. There are numerous customs that were derived from practices rooted in the agrarian culture of Victorian England, that have survived through the centuries -- such as the toss of the bridal bouquet, or the toss of the groom’s garter, both of which are polite versions of an older practice of the wedding guests attending the consummation of the wedding and taking pieces of the bride’s gown as souvenirs.”

“Ridiculous,” Mother exclaimed indignantly. “Barbaric!”

Deanna reached the open hatch on her feet only because Jean-Luc was holding her up -- the deck swayed to the diagonal again, and her stomach started to make her regret the impulse to do this.

“What’s a consummation?” Alexander asked.

“Oh -- “ Nausicaan curse words failed to arrive on her lips thanks to the filter that detected the presence of children and thwarted her habit. Her right foot came down on the step, just as Jean-Luc in his startled reaction to the potentially-distressing development of Data starting to answer the precocious little Klingon’s question loosed his hold on her arm. Her foot skated left, her knee folded, and in a split second she found herself sliding down the narrow stairwell on her side, mostly her hip.

The ensuing confused jam-up was an effective distraction -- they escaped the ridiculousness of trying to convince Alexander to postpone a discussion of sex by trying to get Deanna off the steps, into the Great Cabin, into a comfortable enough chair to allow Beverly the space to whip out the medical kit and get everything under way again. 

“You have the bigger kit with you,” Deanna said, eyeing the large case open on the floor at her feet. Beverly’s blue skirt pooled around her on the floor.

“Yes, well, I have this friend -- you might have met the water buffalo? Just relax,” she exclaimed, opening the tricorder. She glared around at the gathering crowd. “Give us some space to breathe, please!” 

The room was filled with chairs -- rather than the large banquet tables she had requested smaller round ones with chairs, to facilitate the many small groups that tended to form at such occasions, and people were taking advantage while young men in period costumes were hustling around with trays of champagne flutes. They were better, Deanna noticed begrudgingly, about staying upright and in motion while the boat shifted and groaned around them. Probably had many days of practice.

Jean-Luc hovered nearby awkwardly, too concerned to escape into the role of host. “Anything broken?”

“Such pessimism,” Nechayev exclaimed. She’d gotten a glass of champagne and strolled over to their corner to check on her. 

“It’s a small fracture,” Beverly said, reaching for the larger of two regenerators. “Not as bad as some of your spectacular ones. Thank goodness. You hit the edge of the step, I think, on the hip.”

“Thank you for your optimism, Admiral,” Deanna said with a weak smile. 

Nechayev watched the doctor run the tool over the fracture. “This happens often?”

“My spirit animal is the water buffalo, I’m told.”

“Which is a better option than mine,” Jean-Luc said fondly, though still with discomfort thanks to the admiral’s presence. He touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry I couldn’t catch you in time.”

“My knee hurts, too,” Deanna said, raising her leg and flexing joints experimentally. “I’m just glad I didn’t drag you down with me.”

Nechayev sat in a chair next to her, unexpectedly, and startled all three of them. She watched Beverly finish up patiently, but Deanna sensed the underlying expectation. She gave Jean-Luc a glance, which he interpreted well enough and went off to fetch flutes of champagne for them. He was, she noticed, immediately waylaid by Alexander, who had been held back by Mother and offered all manner of goodies from the buffet that the staff had provided. 

“Could you help Jean-Luc break it to Alexander that we’re not doing any tossing of anything?” Deanna asked.

Beverly shut the first aid kit with a snap and shot her a look that said she knew a dismissal when she heard one. “Sure,” she said with a smile. “I’ll get him to cut the cake for you.”

Deanna took a few deep breaths as she watched her friend hurry over -- Jean-Luc was so relieved to see Beverly interrupt that she guessed Alexander wasn’t liking evasiveness and was doggedly pursuing an answer to the question of what consummation was. 

“I wouldn’t have expected this but a wedding on a sailing ship is a lovely idea,” Nechayev said, sounding for all the world like a good friend instead of an admiral. She even smiled at Deanna.

“Thank you, Admiral. We’re so glad you were able to be here. I know it was very last minute, but the opportunity was there, and some of our friends won’t be, for long. I know many of the crew are being given opportunities they won’t be able to pass up.” Deanna gave her the cheeriest smile she could manage. She already felt tired, thanks to the traveling and the ongoing effort to fight the tilting deck. “We’re having a larger reception next week, in San Francisco, for the rest of the crew.”

“Is everything all right?” Nechayev was being… strange. Concern wasn’t what Deanna would have expected. Even if it had the formality covering it.

“It’s been better,” Deanna confessed. “I’m not quite sure what the future will bring. It’s an unusual situation to feel so… detached.”

“Surely you have had offers. Jean-Luc mentioned you were teaching?”

“Offers,” she echoed, thinking about Thomas, and Pulaski.

Nechayev leaned in slightly. “There is something wrong.”

“There are people in Starfleet with a lot to hide. I was informed recently that I could be one. That I might be recruited. I don’t want to be, and frankly, it’s quite alarming.”

Nechayev, after a moment of surprise -- whether at confiding in her, or in the nature of the described behavior, it wasn’t clear -- felt sympathy. “Recruited by whom?”

“I have no idea. Some covert ops group that threatens you if you won’t comply, apparently, which sounds like a subversion of everything we stand for. I couldn’t even begin to tell you how upsetting it is, knowing they exist.”

Nechayev had a faint expression of displeasure, that suggested she might have smelled something rotten. Judging from the disapproval and the simmering anger, she knew what Deanna was talking about. But she didn’t immediately respond.

Deanna looked at the floor and thought about what it must be like, to be an admiral. Lonely, she suspected. Nechayev’s eyes followed Captain Holloway as he followed the pitch of the deck over to the buffet, and stood in line to get a plate.

“I’m sorry,” Nechayev said at last.

Deanna stared at her. “Admiral?”

“We are on the verge of a war,” Nechayev said quietly, her ice blue eyes traveling from one guest to the other, landing finally on Deanna’s. “I think that I may have played a part in what is to come.”

“There are many decisions that were made with insufficient information, that I wish had been decided in other ways. It’s just the way life can be. Blame is easy for people to do, particularly those who have no insight into the reality of a situation. Guilt is easy for those who actually make decisions with unintended consequences.”

Nechayev was eyeing her, now. 

“I’m certain Jean-Luc wishes he might have chosen differently, at Veridian. He’s been very busy for many reasons, but I think it has helped him avoid much thought about the loss of the ship. He may not flinch at throwing us all into harm’s way in the name of principles or to save lives, but the actual loss of people hurts. I miss my home,” Deanna said mournfully.

“This isn’t appropriate for a wedding, I think,” Nechayev chided gently. 

“I suppose not. But it’s been difficult -- no sooner than one crisis ends, another begins. It was a relief not having to be in court for an extended period, and then -- well. None of that is appropriate, for a wedding.”

“You must forgive me, Deanna, for being a poor conversationalist. I am afraid that my career has robbed me of the ability to discuss anything beyond Starfleet.” She nodded toward Alexander, now calm and regarding one of the many oddities in the room along with Data and Jean-Luc -- there was a pianoforte in the corner. No doubt Data was explaining it to them.

Deanna was amused by the confession, and hoped that the surprise wasn’t showing in her face. “That unfortunately makes perfect sense to me. There was one couple aboard, who married after a whirlwind romance. She was having difficulties with finding things to talk to him about over dinner. He wasn’t Starfleet, hadn’t had any family or friends who were officers. That was a challenging case.”

“I sometimes wonder what will happen when I retire. But I don’t have much time to think about that.”

“You may want to think about that more, before you actually do it. It helps to have a goal in mind, before the transition.”

Nechayev had an odd smirk. “Thank you, Counselor.”

“Oh, well, I suppose it is as automatic as breathing,” Deanna said, grinning. “Sorry.”

“I thought there was supposed to be a toast, or cake, or are you abandoning all of the traditions altogether?”

“I think no one wants to interrupt us. You’re an admiral, after all.”

The sadness at that surprised her. Deanna put a hand on Nechayev’s arm, which surprised the older woman into looked her in the eye.

“Why don’t you meet me for lunch, on Monday?” Deanna asked. She immediately felt the internal wince -- this wasn’t a crewmate, and there was no Ten Forward -- no semi-formal atmosphere in a Starfleet setting to frame the encounter. She’d spoken out of habit, instinct, as if the admiral were an officer for whom she was responsible.

“I -- “ Nechayev seemed to be surprised two times over -- once at the offer, twice at her own dumbfounded response. 

“We’re in the penthouse, at the Grenada.”

That won her an incredulous look. “You are?”

“It would give us a chance to -- not interrupt a wedding,” Deanna said, daring to rise from the chair at last.

“I’ll be there,” the admiral said. Still reeling a little internally, she took her champagne and navigated the sloping deck to find someone else to talk to.

Data must have been watching her. He began to strike his glass, quieting the murmur of conversation. “I would like to propose a toast,” he began, raising his champagne. 

Everyone went quiet and turned to look at the android, as he stepped toward the middle of the room. Deanna slowly crossed the room, smiling at friends she passed, to tuck her hand through Jean-Luc’s arm. Alexander put his arm around her and grinned up at her. She nodded and held her glass low, so he could sip a little of it.

Data looked at them, opened his mouth to speak, but hesitated. There was a distant voice, moaning, that Deanna slowly recognized -- she couldn’t sense her mother, which was nothing new, as Lwaxana frequently blocked her. But either she was wailing in distress or in ecstasy, somewhere. 

Deanna saw and sensed recognition from several people. Beverly was trying hard not to start laughing. Jean-Luc, surprisingly, hadn’t caught on yet. Deanna smiled at him, and nodded to Data. 

“A toast,” Data said uncertainly. 

“To Captain Picard,” Geordi said, louder than Data. 

“And Commander Troi,” Mike put in as Mother started to sing for joy. 

“Santé,” Robert boomed out, raising his voice and swinging his glass over to touch Marie’s. When no one followed his example, raised their glasses vaguely, he called out “No, no, non! You do not wave your glasses -- in France we make eye contact, we touch the glasses, and we bless them with health -- santé!”

The enthusiastic instruction led to enthusiastic toasts, and glasses clinking, which was nearly enough to drown out the heights of passion -- as the laughter and merriment subsided all was quiet again. Deanna sipped more champagne as she met Jean-Luc’s startled eyes, as he too sipped. 

“Mother clearly feels strongly that she must bless our union with her own,” she murmured.

“Are you sure it was her? Because her husband is over there.” Jean-Luc indicated direction with a dart of the eyes, and Deanna saw that yes, indeed, Fred was nibbling a canape and talking to Nechayev and Holloway, and Ro. An unexpected combination to say the least.

“Guess how long her shortest marriage lasted?”

Jean-Luc blinked. He gave her a ‘don’t-want-to-know’ wary look. “Less than the current one?”

“They woke up the morning after the elopement and he remembered he had a wife and children already, and left.”

“Thank you for not following in her footsteps.”

Deanna smiled and brushed her lips along his cheek on the way to whisper. “I thank myself for that, every day.”

\--------------------

It took four hours for everyone to come around to talk to them, exchange pleasantries or jokes or pass along well wishes. The first to go was the admiral -- she beamed away well before dinner time. The other officers weren’t far behind. Beverly lingered to assist in the evacuation of the civilians via transporter, as pre-arranged and approved by the admiral, then took Wes and Alexander with her back to San Francisco. It was quite late in that time zone and Alexander was exhausted. When the last guest had departed, Deanna took off her short heels and went barefoot up on the deck with Jean-Luc to sit and watch the sun set over the ocean. Neither one of them was hungry, after the endless buffet at the reception.

“It’s a good thing it calmed down,” he commented. “You were looking green, for a little while.”

“I may be getting used to it. I only threw up once, and I think it had more to do with the canape I had.” 

They leaned on the railing and stared out across the water stained red, orange and yellow as the sun set. He sighed heavily, enjoying the peace. 

“You haven’t shown me where we’re supposed to sleep,” she commented. “I know Data and Geordi intend to stay up half the night helping sail the thing, but I’m tired and my feet hurt.”

“Most of the crew of these old vessels slept in hammocks, slung in the beams of the lower decks. For weddings, the current crew gives up the captain’s quarters. On this particular vessel there is a real bed for the occasion.”

Deanna pulled the combs from her hair and shook it out over her shoulders. “I enjoyed everything, with just a couple of exceptions.”

“I know -- Mr. Homn was entirely too chatty, after three glasses of champagne.”

She laughed at his outrageousness. “I’m so glad you’ve learned to completely ignore Mother. If you had shown any irritation she would have just gotten worse.”

“I feel badly for Fred.”

“Men who marry my mother are a fairly resilient bunch. She doesn’t get angry at them for leaving. One of her better attributes -- she’s very forgiving.”

“It would be more honest if she didn’t marry them at all.”

“She sincerely believes she is in love with each of them. That’s the same as anyone, you know.”

He smiled, thinking about something that made him feel a bittersweet sort of nostalgia and sigh again. “I sincerely believe I’m in love with you.”

“But I know you will be committed to me, and our daughter, even if… you don’t feel the same, at some point.”

“Oh, stop, Deanna. I may be inept but I have enough self awareness to know this is different.”

“All right. I’ll just wait for the proof.”

He straightened and crossed his arms. “Deanna, darling, if you can’t believe that I’m committed enough -- “

She cut off his words with a kiss. Her timing was good enough -- he reciprocated without another thought, his hands going to her shoulders. A call from one of the crew to another reminded him they were above deck and standing in the sunset, so he broke away and led her by the hand from the poop deck to the quarter deck, to the door to the captain’s quarters.

“I think you should know I’m very happy,” she said, coming down the steps behind him. She hesitated to look around the small cabin -- there was indeed a bed, at the back wall, with a bank of paned windows taking up the top third of the wall. Faint orange light glowed in the panes.

“And why would that be?”

“You called me darling.”

He dropped the white and gold jacket on the back of the chair, worked off the embroidered white undershirt, and couldn’t seem to look at her. 

“You almost weren’t joking, too,” she said. 

He came to her, lifted the shoulders of the dress and slid them down her arms, using a finger to tug down the bodice. “Do you want me to call you darling?”

“Only if you mean it sincerely.”

Jean-Luc nodded, pursing his lips, faking a thoughtful face. “I suppose I’ve been remiss in not finding some sort of pet name. That’s what normal people do, isn’t it?”

“All right, I asked for it, I suppose.” She turned left -- aft, she corrected herself silently -- toward a narrower-than-normal door that had to be a small bathroom. 

She returned in the negligee she had brought for the occasion. The hip-hitched pose was wasted; he was down to the shorts, all right, and waiting on the bed, sound asleep. 

“What is consummation, indeed?” 

At least he was to the point that he adjusted in his sleep when she nudged him. There wasn’t much room, it definitely wasn’t as luxurious as their own bed at home, but as she pulled up the sheet and blanket over them, his arm went around her waist and he made a contented sound in the back of his throat.

“I love you, even if you’re determined to be a tired old man.”

“Mmmhmmm.”

In the bed she felt the movement of the boat again, as it traveled onward across the ocean, and she smiled serenely as she closed her eyes.

She woke again, hours later, to find starlight coming in the window -- she looked up through the panes at the sky. It was so quiet, only the creak and groan of wood as the boat sailed on. The stars seemed especially bright, as there was no moon. 

“Hello, my friends,” she murmured.

“Do you know the constellations?” Jean-Luc asked in his husky, sleepy voice.

“Not the ones from Earth.”

He drew her over against him, and pointed with his right hand. “That’s Pegasus, up there. Equuleus is over there. Off that way is Taurus, the bull.”

Sleepy and yet interested, she listened to him reel off a list of constellations and even explain how some of them got their names. He fell silent after a while, and she lay in his arms. Both were quite aware of each other. There were currents of emotion between them that weren't easily put into words. They were adrift together, and it was eminently satisfying.

“Darling,” he murmured, raising his hand to her head to stroke her hair.

Deanna fell asleep again, quite content to let the Atlantic rock them gently all night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story of Lwaxana's shortest marriage is the same story as my former mom-in-law's fifth marriage... don't drink and elope, folks.


	47. The Magnificent

In the morning the winds came up and the ship began to plunge and the waves to rise, and Jean-Luc went to inform Geordi and Data that as lovely as it had been, he had to take Deanna home. She clung to the edge of the bed while he did so, wrapped in a robe she’d brought. He returned at least ten years later, just as she contained yet another urge to hurl up the lovely breakfast they’d had.

“Come along, Mrs. Picard,” he said, taking her arm to steady her. He picked up the bag from the bed and brought it to his chest to tap the badge he’d put on his shirt. “Energize.”

The transporter beam caught them and left them in their own living room. Deanna swayed, her knees wobbling. “Why do I feel like I’m still on the ship?”

“You spent a couple of days on a moving surface -- it’ll subside. Come sit down.” He guided her down the steps toward the semi-circular sofa that took up most of the living room.

“I should get dressed.”

“We’re home early and no one knows we’re here. You should sit down. Computer, give us coffee.” He left her sitting on the sofa and tossed the bag aside. When he returned to the sofa, he had two cups of coffee, a plate of scones and croissants, a dish of Marie’s currant jelly, and no shirt on.

“I need some help,” she said with a lopsided grin, falling back and pulling her feet up to lie on the sofa. “I’m really feeling very lightheaded, as if I might just float away. I don’t suppose you could hold me down for a while, until I feel more grounded?”

He put the tray on the table and leaped -- her token attempt to fend him off went nowhere, of course, and she only made a bigger mess of her hair, which for some reason he found appealing. She laughed, letting her hands roam across his chest while he kissed her throat.

The polite chime brought about a surprising reaction -- on the _Enterprise_ he had always responded with restraint and collected patience. This time, he froze in place for a few seconds -- he was off and gone, leaving her cold in last night’s negligee and wrapping the robe around herself again.

“Fuck,” she blurted. It distracted him from the fury, as he was en route to the door for some morning evisceration.

“Computer, who’s at the door?”

“Doctor Beverly Crusher,” the soft female voice replied. Geordi had tweaked the computer to sound less male and obsequious. More like a Starfleet computer.

“I think she’s dropping off the gifts, or possibly getting something for Alexander,” Deanna said.

“I’m going to get a shirt,” he exclaimed, still angry -- he snatched up the one he’d discarded from the floor and hustled off toward the bedroom.

Deanna tied the robe and told the computer to open the door. Beverly, wearing a white pullover and some navy slacks, came in already wearing an apologetic expression. She had bags dangling from her hands. “I thought you’d be on the boat until late today,” she said. “I came to put these here, so you’d have them to go through before Alexander comes home after school tomorrow. We just dropped him off with your mother for the day.”

“The ocean got rougher than I could tolerate. Thanks, Beverly, for all the help -- I don’t think I would have been able to manage it without you.”

“It helped that you opted out of a lot of the usual traditions. There are a lot fewer things to collect and organize, when you’re not having a straight up ritualized wedding.” She smiled and then it seemed to sink in, as she really looked at Deanna. Her chin dropped, and then she backed a step. “You look like -- I need to go.”

“I’m sorry about Mother,” Deanna said, with genuine regret in her voice.

“Well, it went… a little better than I expected, given what you’ve told me. I saw her off to the Hilton, last night, but her husband didn’t want to go with her.”

“He probably wasn’t the only one who noticed her fascination with that lovely young cabin boy. I tried to get her to agree to behave, but it wasn’t meant to be.”

“Everything all right?” Beverly’s sly, amused grin clashed with her slight discomfort and crossed arms.

Deanna nodded, and put a hand to her hair -- it was out of control, messy and standing away from her head in its usual manner, when there’d been hands playing in it. “Of course. Thanks for bringing these by.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Beverly turned to head out. “He’d better take you on a honeymoon -- somewhere remote and gorgeous.”

“We’ll see.”

As the door was closing behind Beverly, Deanna came up to the dining area to rifle through a couple of the bags, arranging gifts in a line on the table. The one from the admiral -- and Ben Holloway, she realized, reading the tag with raised eyebrows -- was about the size of a basketball and wrapped in silver paper. And light.

Jean-Luc returned, treating her to the sight of him marching around indignantly without any clothing whatsoever. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Coming to see what shirt you’re wearing. Very nice.” He must have been waiting for her to sense him being sexy. "I'm sorry, I must be tired."

His agitation might have been mistaken for actual anger, if she hadn’t been an empath, and he hadn’t been sporting an impressive erection.

“You’re thinking about something naughty, aren’t you?” Deanna took off the robe, dropped it across the back of a chair, and started to run her fingers through her hair, backing toward the sparse little kitchen, which was essentially an alcove with counters and a replicator.

He lunged after her, and the dodging ended when he trapped her in a corner and his hands caught her up against him, his fingers pressing into her flesh more forcefully than usual. She welcomed his attentions, sliding her thigh along his and leaning against the counter’s edge while he pushed the pink lace aside and ran a speculative finger along the underside of her breast.

“Consummation on the counter?” she murmured.

That was enough to slow him down. “No,” he whispered. And then she once again found herself swept up in his arms, putting her own around his neck as he carried her through the apartment to the bedroom.

He put her on the bed, without tossing her. When he started to kiss her she knew what this would be -- slow, methodical and determined to make her moan.

“Jean-Luc. I need something,” she murmured as he kissed from her ear down the side of her neck.

He wondered, without speaking, and so she responded by thinking about it without putting it into words. This time, instead of taking turns giving and taking, they moved together, enjoyed each other’s touch together, because the sensations echoed back and forth between them. It left them gasping and laughing together in a tangle of covers, after finding their way to a mutually satisfying orgasm.

“You think it will keep getting better? I’m having trouble imagining it.”

“I don’t know, but I will enjoy finding out.”

“We have, I believe, a full twenty-four hours of solitude before us. What would you like to do?”

She pushed herself up on her elbows. “I suppose it would be a bit more than we could manage, to spend it having sex. How about starting with a bath, then working our way to getting dressed, then we can spend a little time in the nursery. We could open our wedding gifts, as well.”

“That will probably leave us with twenty hours,” he said, tucking his hands behind his head.

“So, more sex,” she said.

He started to laugh, helplessly. “Wonderful. I’ll be dead by hour fifteen.”

“There’s quite a number of shops in the city that will replace my box of toys, you know.”

“Uh.”

“I can go by myself. It will give me a chance to buy you a birthday present.”

That set off quite a debate, for him. He reached over to pick up the pink brassiere he’d pulled off her, dangling it at her. “Is this an example of what you’d buy me for my birthday?”

“That was something I got at the last minute bridal shower slash girl’s night out that Beverly threw for me. Marie gave it to me.”

“Marie? Gave you -- “ He picked up what was left of the thong.

“I have a few other ideas for your birthday present. Something in green, or black, perhaps.”

“Deanna, you really don’t need to… I really don’t want anything for my birthday.”

“You hate birthdays. You also don’t like interruptions of your private time, or children.”

He exhaled loudly at the implications. “You’re going to make me like birthdays, now?”

“I think you have misattributed some things -- I haven’t made you do a thing, have I? You wanted to get married. You really wanted to make love with me, spend more and more of your time with me. I’m just doing what makes you happy.” It was mildly upsetting to him, as he thought about it. She rolled over and moved on hands and knees to sit astride him. “Are you thinking that means I’m not happy? It’s not binary -- I don’t make you happy at my expense, you know. We’re going to be happy together.”

“We have been so far.”

She rolled her eyes. “Are you trying to tell me something, Jean-Luc?”

Having her sitting there on top of him naked was quite a distraction, but he still managed to go there. “I’m old, Deanna. I fell asleep on our wedding night.”

“And I’m such a stickler for tradition that I threw a fit and made you walk the plank, instead of curling up with you and being quite content to do it?”

“All right,” he exclaimed. “So now, every time I start to worry about this I just remind myself that you asked for it?”

She gave him a smug smile and a pluck of the nipple. “Good boy.”

“Oh,” he said faintly. Something occurred to him then, that put a furrow in his brow.

“When you aren’t focusing on me I lose the ability to read your mind, you know.”

“I was just thinking… never mind. I don’t want to talk about work on our time.”

She was reminded of the admiral, apologizing for having a single track life. It must have shown in her face. He touched her cheek with his thumb, as if trying to wipe away the frown.

“We should talk about whatever we want to,” she said. “Starfleet is a part of our lives in a way that no ordinary job would be. What is it?”

Jean-Luc put his hands on her thighs, running them up to her hips, and she knew he was reaching so came forward into his arms, lowering her weight onto him slowly. “When I mentioned the ship, the _Enterprise_ , before, it made you nervous. Tell me about that.”

“You’re trying to ask what I want you to do.”

“I’m trying to understand how you feel about the possibility of returning to a ship, together, in our old roles. We’ve always worked very well together. But -- it’s been different here on Earth. It feels like we’re closer, and if it continues to change, to grow, we’ll have to figure out how to be officers again.”

“My dear, dear love,” she said with a sigh, pressing her forehead to his shoulder. “We will be officers if we have to be, when we have to be, and it’ll be fine. Don’t base the decision on me. If you want command, take it. And don’t think about what Kirk told you in the Nexus. Think about what you want to do, and we’ll go do that.”

“I can’t imagine the baby,” he murmured into her hair. “I can’t see him in that scenario, on the ship.”

“The crib will fit in your quarters. He will be everything you want, and more. His younger siblings too.” Hands on his shoulders, elbows on his chest, she raised her head and looked him in the eye, the tips of their noses almost touching. Her hair tumbled down around her face. “If you want them to. I realize that you’ve never considered having a family until now, Jean-Luc. It wouldn’t be odd to have second thoughts.”

His fingers found their way into her hair, as usual. “You’ve been very patient with me, over the years. I’m not sure I made it clear how much that means to me.”

“I know. You have, actually.”

“Deanna, I love you. But I want -- “

“You want the _Enterprise_ and your family too. I’d like that -- even if I’m afraid of it myself. There’s this captain, you see… I’ve found that he does things that other officers can’t seem to manage, sometimes, and I really would follow him anywhere he wanted me to go, because I know he won’t lead me there without a good reason. It’s all right, Jean-Luc. I love that side of you too. I always have, even before I fell in love with you. Even before I saw your magnificent penis.”

After a moment of dumbfounded shock, he shoved her away, laughing at her. She swept up a pillow and belted him with it. It led to a short wrestling match, which ended with her across his knees as he sat on the edge of the bed.

When he hesitated, she glanced over her shoulder. He was staring down at her while running his palm over her left buttock and thigh.

“Admiring my magnificent buttocks,” she half-asked.

He chided her with his eyes. “Computer, run hot water in the bathtub.”

Deanna repositioned herself, to sit on the bed with him. “Jean-Luc, it’s not going to hurt anything to indulge in that kind of sex play.”

“It’s not that -- I wasn’t certain -- “

“I don’t like real injury,” she said. “I don’t like aggressive play, but I don’t consider a spanking to be that aggressive. Holding me against my will, tying me up, or suffocation -- don’t want any of that. My favorite position is the traditional missionary but I enjoy the reverse, what so many insultingly term ‘doggie’ style.”

Of course, he was caught in that usual frustration and anxiety, of being stuck trying to have a conversation about something he never conversed with anyone about.

“Going to join me in the bath?”

“Yes,” he responded immediately.

She waited for him to get in the water, then climbed in to sit on her knees and start washing him. “I encourage couples to discuss things like sexual preferences, to avoid misunderstandings, you know. But we can talk about that later. It’s a difficult discussion to have.”

“Yes,” he said.

Deanna gave him a sly smile, and ran the cloth down his chest. “I like your body. Isn’t that a good thing?”

“I….”

“I like your face. I like your smile. And it really is a magnificent penis.”

It was a little too much, for him. He watched her hand, as it ran the cloth down his arm, instead of looking at her face.

“I’m sorry, Jean-Luc. It wasn’t my intention to embarrass you.”

“I’m not -- no one ever….”

“No one ever dares to comment that way. I’m sorry, it’s… too Betazoid, to be so blunt about things.”

“I’ve never heard you be like that,” he murmured. “Like your mother.”

“Oh.” She let the cloth drop in the water.

“Not as bad, by any means, of course. But being so blunt hasn’t been like you, and while it’s appealing to some degree, I’m just not -- “

She nodded, and gave him a brittle smile. “I know. You aren’t comfortable talking about your sexuality, even with me. It’s all right.”

Jean-Luc stared at her in consternation. “You’re about to cry. What is it?”

Deanna frowned, turned to reach for the edge of the tub to get out, but he touched her shoulder. She could sense the rising panic in him, and turned back to look at him.

“What did I do?” he asked plaintively.

“I know you didn’t mean I’m like her, really, but -- “

“I’m sorry.”

“I know. I know you didn’t mean -- she’s Betazoid, and all of us can be more candid than other species, about certain things. But even though she loves me, with all her heart, she can be so caught up in things that she takes over entire parties or….”

“Or has loud orgasms in the middle of the toast at our wedding,” he said, with the undercurrent of anger he had suppressed before. “Or makes whatever is going on about her -- what she wants. Disrupting an entire mission, sometimes. And she’s hurt you, repeatedly, hasn’t she?”

Deanna laughed derisively at it. “Here I am sitting with my husband the day after my wedding, and all the guests are probably all telling their friends about the funny thing that happened, instead of about the wedding itself. I’m not the sort of person who cares about having the spotlight, you know that. But it’s always going to be that way. For all her promises of going to great trouble to hold elaborate ceremonies for me, she doesn’t take my wedding any more seriously than she’s taken any of hers. I’m not going to be that way, Jean-Luc. I told you that already. I’m not going to leave you.”

Jean-Luc shared the brittle smile with her, and sat up out of the water a little more so he could kiss her cheek -- kiss away tears, she realized. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, and she sensed an echo of her own pain. “You aren’t like her, in any way that matters to me. I want -- I want to make you happy. Just tell me what will make you happy.”

“You do -- it’s not going to erase what’s happened with Mother, but you’re doing fine,” she said. “Let’s go do the things we intended, and maybe you’ll take me out to dinner? Perhaps with a sunset view.”

“We didn’t dance, at the reception, thanks to the tilting of the deck. So I should take you dancing.”

She beamed at him for being willing to do that, for her. “I have some new dresses -- I’ll wear the one you like most.”

“I think we have enough time that you could try them all on. Model them for me.”

They were dried off, changed into comfortable clothes, and he went out to get the coffee they’d abandoned when Beverly arrived -- recycled it and got fresh hot cups. And joined her in the nursery to hand her a cup. She accepted it with a smile.

“I’m not sure what else we need,” he said, looking around. “It looks good to me.”

The crib was in place, the chest of drawers -- Deanna opened a drawer and there were a few clothing items already, some booties and tiny shirts and dresses. He picked out a lacy cap, and stared at it.

“There are a few things left to get. A changing table, for one thing. We have plenty of time. Infants need a cap to keep their heads warm -- for a while, anyway. Do you like the colors I'm using for the room?”

"I do -- very calming." Jean-Luc dropped the cap back in the drawer. He contemplated some deep thought for a moment.

“What is it?”

“This is how it is. Isn’t it?”

“How what is?”

Jean-Luc turned to her, feeling a little foolish, and a lot of love. “Relationships are this way. You can feel intensely, make poor choices, make mistakes, and the good relationships will survive. Perhaps be stronger for it.”

“Yes.” She smiled proudly at him.

“Which you’ve told me so many times before, in so many ways.”

“Yes. I’ve also told you that you understand when you’re ready to, and that’s all right too.”

He sipped coffee, and glanced around the room, decorated in sea greens and pale blues. “I probably told you I love you, as well.”

“And you can repeat that as often as you like.”

“Let’s go look at those dresses.” He turned, glancing at her, up to something. "Find one that shows off your magnificent buttocks."

She smirked. "Because you like my body?"

"Oh. I'd say there must be a better word for it than 'like'...."


	48. Buy One Conspiracy, Get One Free

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to edit a few things in the past two chapters. I find my attention span and memory lacking, lately, and managed to make the fetus both a boy and a girl -- while there may be some potential story fodder in having a little hermaphrodite child, I think I have enough plot twists to work on for now. 
> 
> First season episodes Coming of Age and Conspiracy are referenced.
> 
> I could regale you with all the tedium that kept me otherwise occupied for two weeks... But on with the fic.
> 
> AO3 has been sending notifications on very old comments, to me -- I think that may be the answer to why some have gotten notifications for the older chapters. The software is suffering from tachyon interference.

"You're sure you don't want to come?"

Deanna flicked her eyes to his face, from her examination of the tight pants he wore. They were standing in the replicator alcove. "I have a previous commitment in an hour. Otherwise I would."

Jean-Luc went still, raising an eyebrow. "More shopping?"

"The fleet admiral is coming for lunch," she admitted, almost wincing at the anticipated response.

Both his eyebrows climbed, but he merely gave it a nod. "All right. I'll ask them about other horses -- I expect they'll have something docile and patient enough for Alexander, but I think it best if I see the animals before the two of you come along."

"And I'll be making appointments with the airfield for some skydiving, for us, this weekend." She stepped around the table and kissed him on the cheek. "Have fun riding around Golden Gate Park." She watched him sling the saddle over his shoulder and waited until he got to the door. "Don't fall off."

He was torn between amusement and disgruntlement, but he only hesitated for a few seconds on the doorstep before going onward. Once the door slid shut behind him, Deanna picked up her glass of cold fruit juice and headed out on the balcony. It was warmer now than it had been first thing in the morning, and she spent a moment standing at the hip-height wall looking down at the street far below. Then she turned to put the glass on a short table next to one of the two lounge chairs, tug the sleeves of the billowing sea green house dress off her shoulders so it dropped to the floor around her, and kick off her slippers. Sunbathing was a new habit but a welcome one. Something that had never been quite the same, on the holodeck. The slight breeze was a tad cool against her skin, raising a few goosebumps on her nude body, but it felt good to be outside.

After half an hour and one flip to expose her back, she finished her drink and rose to put the dress back on. Fifteen minutes later the summons from the lobby came, and she hadn't changed -- she braided her hair quickly and then the admiral was at the door.

"Good morning, Admiral," she exclaimed, putting on her "greeting guests" smile that she had perfected thanks to her mother's nonstop party habit. "Come in."

Admiral Nechayev was not, she saw with surprise, in uniform. She looked ordinary -- a blond woman in a dark blue dress. She smiled as she entered -- showing very little anxiety but feeling quite a bit of it under the smile. Her eyes wandered for a bit before she spoke. "This is an amazing place."

"It surprised me as well."

"So, he surprised you with this place? This is quite the exclusive address." Nechayev's eyes came to rest on the large bouquet of roses on the dining table. They were in the crystal bowl that she and Ben Holloway had given them, as a wedding present.

"I told him that all I cared about was plenty of space and no carpets. I might have mentioned I like views of the sky. Would you like something to drink? I was about to make myself some tea."

"Certainly, assuming you mean hot tea such as your husband enjoys."

It was odd, sitting down with Nechayev for hot black tea, complete with cream and sugar. She hesitated to use rank, but not having been offered the use of first names, that left her to use neither. At least that would work so long as they were one on one. Deanna set aside the teaspoon and picked up her white china cup for a test sip.

"Where is Jean-Luc today?" Nechayev asked, stirring in some cream.

"He found a stable in Golden Gate Park. Took his saddle and went riding. Since he and his brother have the rebuild of the family home in progress, he has some time to do some of the things he's always enjoyed."

"And what about you? I hope you have taken the time to rest."

There wasn't anything beneath the friendliness that made Deanna think there was an ulterior motive present; she didn't seem to be hiding anything. The anxiety was diminishing, and appeared to be about nothing but the oddity of the event itself. Deanna shrugged a little. "I'm doing some of the things I enjoy as well -- sunbathing, taking Alexander to the park. We're going skydiving this weekend."

"Really?" Nechayev actually laughed a little at it. "Not what I would have imagined."

"It's one of the things I started to do as a child. I don't conform to expectations any more than my mother does, but I do it in different ways." Deanna reached for a shortbread cookie from the plate she'd provided. "You seemed to want to talk to me about something at the wedding."

Nechayev nodded slowly, her smile dwindling rapidly. "I know," she began, feeling uncertainty and wariness. "Perhaps not the best place to attempt such discussions. I had been informed... well. It was more of a hint. A suggestion, that you might be somehow at risk."

"Only me?"

Nechayev actively frowned at it, though there was a little twist of amusement in there. "There wasn't a mention of Jean-Luc, or your son. Though I'm sure you can imagine they might also be at risk by association. You seem to know more about certain things than I anticipated."

"Was it Kyle Riker you were speaking to?" Deanna sensed the lurch of shock and the confirmation, and didn't wait for a verbal response. "We saw him on the grounds one afternoon. I've met him before. I know he's colder and angrier than his son."

"You know -- I think you know more than that," Nechayev said quietly, putting down her cup.

"I have met them, at times through the years. People with multiple layers of motives and emotions who weren't as straightforward as the officers I worked with. I don't know what their real agenda is, I merely know that I want nothing to do with them." Deanna met the blue eyes across the table. "You don't have that luxury, do you?"

The admiral's eyelids swept down, and she contemplated her response carefully. There was a certain yearning present that made Deanna think the admiral wanted to be open, but hesitated.

"This apartment is secure. The computer is firewalled and subroutines would alert us if any intrusion attempt was made. Unlike the Starfleet systems, which apparently have subroutines to spy on officers. There wasn't any other way you could have known about Jean-Luc and I."

At that, the admiral stared wide-eyed at her. "Deanna," she said sadly.

"Was it your concern, or theirs, that drove you to send Dr. Carlson to pry?"

 "You're misinterpreting," Nechayev exclaimed. She gazed at Deanna with calculating, wary, but determined calm. "That was a poorly considered request -- I was informed by someone that I should look into something that would have... undesirable ramifications. I was given Carlson's name. I didn't look into it, I should have, because it didn't occur to me she might be your personal counselor."

Deanna took a slow breath, and looked out at the cityscape. She might never have guessed Nechayev could feel shame. "Informed by one of those nameless people who threaten you if you don't do as your told? Move this ship here, keep that officer out of the area?"

 Nechayev was alarmed, offended, angry -- Deanna's tone had been soft, though. After a few moments the emotional climate settled down. She was sad, then. And then there was a decision made, and she leaned forward slightly. 

"You are sure that no one can record or hear our conversation," she said.

"Yes."

"The past few years have been terrible," Nechayev began. Deanna could tell this was something the admiral had never said to anyone -- there was an urgency and anxiety to it, that usually preceded deep, dark secrets from a client, that they had never admitted before. "It hasn't always been this way. Something changed recently."

Deanna frowned at her, feeling the uneasiness in her stomach starting. "How recently?"

 "I started to notice it when I was still in Starfleet Operations. I thought it was strange, how suddenly people I knew turned into strangers who acted differently. Your captain confronted something similar and logged it during his first year aboard the _Enterprise_."

"You mean it's the parasites," Deanna exclaimed, leaning back in surprise. "But -- "

"I know what you're going to say," Nechayev said. "I suspect it's different, this time. Perhaps they learned from the first attempt."

"There has to be a way to do something about it." The parasites that had nearly overtaken Starfleet Command had been easy to defeat once the "queen" had been found. "Surely you have listened to the logs and reports?"

But the admiral shook her head slowly. "Let's have a salad and I'll explain what I've done so far."

They were half done with blue leaf salads and explanations when the front door opened without notice. Jean-Luc strode in, and Deanna knew he was responding to her -- she hadn't been thinking about him, being wrapped up in what the admiral was telling her. He approached the table, his boots loud on the floor panels.

"Did something happen?" Deanna asked, her fork hovering over the bowl with tines loaded with green and blue leaves.

"Yes," he said curtly, not wanting to be revealing in front of the admiral. "Is everything all right?"

"We're fine. The admiral was just explaining the things she has done to attempt to unravel the conspiracy." She looked him up and down. There were grass stains and a few leaves present. "You need a shower and clean clothes. Did you fall off?"

"It was a spirited horse," he said defensively, backing a step.

"I'll replicate your lunch. Go clean up."

Jean-Luc gazed at the admiral for a moment, and retreated toward the bedroom, having satisfied his concern that her upset stomach and anxiety were not about the admiral but about the subject of conversation. Deanna replicated a beef sandwich and a small salad for him, setting the place next to her at the table.

"Does he think I'm going to kidnap you?" the admiral asked, mildly amused.

"He's been a little more paranoid lately. I'm about a month and a half pregnant."

Nechayev grinned -- she'd never seen the admiral smile so brightly, in fact. "Congratulations. Are you having a shower?"

"I have no idea. I suspect everyone will have gotten me everything I need well before the baby arrives -- the nursery is already full of things." Deanna waved her fork dismissively. "You were saying that you have a list of people who you suspect have been infected?"

"I don't keep records, but I can tell you who I suspect."

"Does it include Admiral Ross?"

Nechayev stared at her again, as she had a number of times just today, but it took less time for her to decide. There was a definite shift of attention and focus, now, as well. "Did you sense anything from him, during the debriefing?"

"He lied to me. I found that curious, what with his knowing that I am an empath. He knew about the officers I was talking about, the ones on active duty in the Maquis, and he was somewhat anxious for no reason I could discern."

Jean-Luc returned, in a white shirt and slacks, just in time to hear that. He hesitated and gestured with a thumb back toward the bedroom. "Should I get my ice skates?"

"Sit," Deanna exclaimed, pointing at his sandwich. "Listen. Stop joking about hell freezing over."

He obeyed, trying not to look directly at the admiral. Deanna wondered, if either of them had ever stopped feeling anxiety about the other, what might have resulted -- perhaps there would not have been a problem such as the one they were facing.

"She was just explaining to me how she's attempted to get help and been thwarted repeatedly, because she doesn't have Geordi or Data to neuter her computers."

"So they really are going into private security," he commented, picking up his sandwich.

"She's coming to our next meeting," Deanna said. Not that she knew about it yet, but the admiral needed to commit to this, or fall back into the crowd of 'people we don't trust' for good.

Jean-Luc sat upright and went rigid. After a moment recovering from shock, he said, "You're recruiting her based on what, precisely?"

"She hasn't lied to me. She's been approaching me hesitantly for the same reason she was contemplating telling you everything, at different points. Certain parties have diverted you and your vessel from intervening in certain circumstances on a number of occasions -- it wasn't difficult for her to guess you were trustworthy precisely because those parties were opposed to your involvement in situations they wanted to manipulate."

He turned to look across the table at the admiral for a moment. They regarded each other warily, reminding Deanna of two cats squaring off. But then Jean-Luc exhaled, and picked up his fork. Shook his head ruefully.

"Okay."

Nechayev shook her head, chuckling. "Four years of tension, and he relaxes with a word from you."

"Hell," Jean-Luc muttered.

"Who else is on your list of people infected by this parasite?" Deanna asked.

"Wait, parasite?" Jean-Luc exclaimed. "What parasite?"

"Remember the ones you confronted after your friends warned you of a conspiracy? Admiral Quinn? Remmick?"

He gaped at them. "The parasite -- Remmick sent a signal. Of course. But it should be obvious, there should be a gill at the back of the neck."

"Unless this is a more evolved version of it. We were just discussing all the things I have looked for and not found," the admiral said. "Although I can hardly walk around with a tricorder scanning people. I was hoping that Deanna would be able to sense them."

"If this is the parasite, Beverly -- we should call her."

Deanna smiled at him. "You're going to move the meeting up to today?"

"No, just Beverly. She has a new project."

Nechayev was stifling shocked amusement, at that. Deanna smirked at her, but responded to him. "She's not your subordinate any more. Are you sure you want to bother her in the middle of the day to tell her you're assigning her to a new project, while she's working on her current project?"

"Well...." He considered it while chewing a bite of his sandwich. "I'll send her a message."

"Probably the wiser course. Eventually, you do have some sort of sense of self preservation." Deanna turned to Nechayev, again. "Do you think that this parasitic infestation is the only conspiracy in play, within Starfleet?"

Nechayev felt defensive -- but only for a moment. Then she felt tired. "No," she said quietly.

"Deanna," Jean-Luc said quietly, warning in his tone.

"Jean-Luc," she exclaimed, scolding. "I am tired of having no answers, no help and no hope. I've been sitting here discussing everything in as forthright a tone as we're using now. Would you like me to close my mouth again for a few more years?"

"No," he said. "But the admiral...."

"I think it would be best to suspend rank, for this endeavor," the admiral said. "Call me Elena."

 It sent him into another round of shock, but he was getting good at shaking himself out of those quickly. "Has Deanna explained what we've done?"

The recap of what they were planning to do took considerably less time than bringing him up to speed. When they explained why the admiral had sent Dr. Carlson to talk to them, he shot up out of his chair indignantly. Calming down took a moment. Deanna watched him sit down again, then gave him a tight smile and reached over to squeeze his arm.

"If you can identify the subroutines that are collecting information they use for blackmail, I will be able to help you disseminate the countermeasure to the rest of the fleet." Nechayev shoved aside her empty bowl.

Jean-Luc glanced at Deanna questioningly. She nodded. "I'll get it."

Deanna returned from the bedroom with the padd, and brought up the list of names before handing it to the admiral. "Your name is on this list. Do you have anything to tell us about any of the others?"

A few flicks of the fingers and she scrolled through the nearly two hundred names. "Ben isn't on it. These are people like us, I suppose?"

"You mean aware and questioning, and threatened? I don't know. What do you think?" Deanna asked.

"Where did you get this information?"

Deanna took the padd back from her and laid it on the table next to her dishes. "It was given to me by someone who claimed he wanted to protect me. Will said the same thing, that he wanted to protect me. I've been warned by three separate people now that I'm at risk, and informed by one that I'm to be recruited for some nebulous thing, and I'm frustrated. Wouldn't you be?"

Nechayev's lips thinned and her eyes narrowed. "I could see why you might be an asset to the cause of some conspiracy. Was this intended to warn you, or inform you of who to look out for?"

"That's part of the problem. The veiled threat without substance -- no doubt engineered to make you even more afraid than an actual threat would be. I refuse to let it silence me any longer."

Jean-Luc sighed. "I hope you'll forgive me, Elena, as I believe you understand the importance of the information -- but I want to ask if you are really investing yourself in the task of addressing this conspiracy, or if you are playing the part of a double agent."

More weariness, that showed in the admiral's face. "I was like you, once," she said with quiet resignation. "I thought that I could find a way to demolish the conspiracy. Bring them out of the shadows, expose them. Whatever they are doing, they have heavy influence on high-ranking officials. Deanna is correct in her assumption that I saw you as separate -- they repeatedly identified you as a threat to some plan of theirs. There is one man, I don't know his name, who has appeared in my office several times over the years, demanding that I issue orders in a particular manner."

"You are speaking of the other conspiracy, not the parasites," Deanna said. She rose and started to clear the dishes from the table.

"Yes. The parasites are less covert. There's the discernible change of personality. I think the original group is using those infested by parasites."

Deanna couldn't help fidgeting a little, with her hands in her lap. "Do you mean Section 31?"

For a moment, she thought they'd lost her. The admiral came forward slightly in the chair as if about to rise. But she stayed. After a few moments of consideration, she settled again, her shoulders sagging a little. "If that's what you want to call them. I doubt they have a name."

"Why do they consider my relationship with Jean-Luc a risk to be managed? You said you were instructed to intervene." Deanna deliberately used wording that gave it a different nuance, to see if she would be corrected; it wasn't what was said, before.  

The admiral shook her head. Now she was anticipating being tested. "I was told that a situation had developed, that would destabilize morale in the fleet. That I needed to investigate. I was told to ask Dr. Carlson to assess the situation -- to determine whether your relationship was affecting your performance."

There was a melange of emotions that included guilt -- likely the admiral had questioned her own relationship with Holloway, over the years, and her keeping it secret testified to her conclusion on the matter. Deanna glanced at Jean-Luc -- his expression of distaste probably matched her own.

"If I am mated to an idealist, I'm highly unlikely to be a good recruit," she said. "Will had to tell Kyle his stupid theory, for that to have any influence."

"Stupid theory?" Nechayev echoed.

"What do you know about telepathic bonds?"

"Nothing, about Betazoids. You appear to be different than Vulcans, who have lifelong bonds?"

"It turns out that, like any hybrid, I don't conform to anyone's template. Will believes, based on a few months of romance when we were young, that creating a bond with me means I am easily coerced or manipulated emotionally. His simplistic model doesn't account for maturity, changes I've made -- there are disciplines of the mind that can be practiced, to increase and refine skill -- and my experiences."

Nechayev's head tilted, and the frown returned. "Will is one of them. You mentioned Kyle Riker as well. You believe they are both -- How much are you not telling us?"

"Perhaps as much as you aren't telling us?"

Now the admiral looked as though she had a bitter taste in her mouth. Resignation showed in her slouched posture. "I agree that there is much more to discuss."

Deanna reached for the padd, brought up the audio file she had heard, played it for them -- unlike last time she allowed it to continue, as the admiral's voice responded to the condescending male voice telling her that Picard needed to be assigned where he would not become caught up in the Maquis -- it would be a risk to agents already in place, to have an idealist too close to the Demilitarized Zone where he might work out the truth. By the end of it both captain and admiral had expressions that made Deanna want to move out of the way.

"Who was that?" Jean-Luc exclaimed, with less venom than she expected given how angry he was.

"That would be the no-name man I have met with. And that would be why I come aboard your vessel angry, Jean-Luc," she said. "I'd rather do the opposite -- they want to avoid your exposing the lies, I'd rather help you do it. Threats keep me paralyzed. How did you get this recording?"

"Do you know who Thomas Riker is?" Deanna asked.

"You mean the result of the transporter accident that created a copy of Will Riker?" Nechayev was also good at managing shock -- she fumed, but did not take out the anger on them. "Are they genetically predisposed to this sort of thing?"

"Thomas brought me this information. He did not lie when he told me it was his attempt to protect me. He was, apparently, given some assignments and is now embroiled in whatever his father is doing, with regret, but hindsight as always becomes clearer than foresight, which without adequate information is poor. Thomas told me to have my baby and stay out of things. The only ones who knew at that point that I was pregnant were my doctor, who logged the fact in the secure, confidential files she keeps in the Starfleet medical database, and Jean-Luc. Neither one of them revealed that fact to anyone."

"This was part of the reason you believe the computer systems are compromised."

Deanna smiled sadly and crossed her arms. "I know our crew. None of them, other than Will, had any other agenda. I would have sensed something from a spy. I wouldn't expect the Vulcans to willingly participate in such deception, and they would be the only ones I couldn't read, due to their shielding and emotional control. And none of them knew about our relationship. Yet someone knew. The only record of anything was the replicator -- we were replicating clothing in each other's quarters."

"And obviously my own home has been compromised," Nechayev said darkly. "You have a recording I did not know existed."

"That may be something we can use," Deanna said.

Jean-Luc regarded her with surprise and delight. "Every time I think I know about you," he said with a grin.

"Strategy is not an unfamiliar game, for me. Mother," she said, as if it explained everything. From their expressions, it did.

"You aren't going to give away our game to them," Jean-Luc asked, looking at Nechayev.

She met Deanna's eyes as she said, "No."

"You're going to help us," Deanna asked.

"Yes."

"All right." Deanna rose to fetch them drinks. "You should review the rest of the files on the padd. Then we can discuss a two-pronged strategy, to deal with the parasites and then the rest of them."

 


	49. My Starship Brings All the Boys to the Yard

Five weeks of normal life passed, and Deanna let herself forget the big picture, focus on the little things for a while. Alexander told them all about school over dinner, happily and in positive terms; making sure he was in the same one as the Garcia twins had been a good choice, and he'd made plenty of friends. He'd nearly had a few meltdowns but Bo (one or the other of them) had been there to run interference. Deanna had only been called to the school once, for a brief fight between Alexander and a boy who had gotten angry at him for winning a race on the playground. Jean-Luc took their foster son sailing, riding, running and they all went skydiving one week, over the north bay. When they went to see the new Picard home in LaBarre, Rene had had a fantastic time showing his 'cousin' the countryside and introducing him to all his friends.

Their friends remained in a close orbit, in contact every few days. Now that Beverly was two floors down, she was a frequent drop-in visitor, and Wes joined her when she came up for dinner. Data had gone on his tour -- after giving Lwaxana a full briefing, Deanna had obtained her mother's full cooperation in the matter, and let Data stay with her while to run the experimental software he and Geordi were working on. Geordi, meanwhile, taught his class, helping cadets take their first wobbling steps as engineers while spending the rest of his week studying the specs of the Sovereign class vessel and sending seemingly-benign messages to Data with pictures of San Francisco Bay, Thailand, Japan, and other places Geordi had visited -- each picture contained within the coding the real messages. Data's friendly messages also included pictures, of scenery on Betazed that similarly contained responses and some of the algorithms he was coming up with. They were making good progress on the issue of sneaky subroutines, and developing their own.

Mother, on the other hand, sent Deanna the usual cheerful messages -- she didn't mention a divorce, but then she never did. Deanna knew it had to have happened. There was a new man in her life. To Deanna's surprise, he seemed to be lasting for more than a few days. Mother was enjoying having the android as a guest, as well, surprisingly enough. It probably helped that she couldn't read Data at all. Also that Data would never take anything she said or did personally.

The requests for letters of recommendation trickled in, as the thousand people from the crew of the 1701-D started to find other positions. Natchez was one of them -- he'd been offered a position at Command. He had been torn, he'd said, between waiting and going, and finally caved to the temptation of serving with Admiral Leyton. There would have to be a new operations manager, on the next _Enterprise_. Mike, on the other hand, was taking full advantage of the time off and would be returning from Betazed with Leila in a few days. He would be bringing Data back with him.

Deanna was listening to the headlines in the Starfleet news feed while drinking tea, midmorning, before settling in to put together her lecture for her next class. She knew Jean-Luc was riding, enjoying the morning on his favorite horse at the local stable. She knew Beverly was at Starfleet Medical, and that the admiral was in her office at Command. She could sense any of them, if she focused, as well as Alexander just a few blocks away at school, probably involved in a math problem -- he disliked math even though he could do it fairly well when he focused, and he was feeling that usual frustration.

She heard nothing in the news that didn't sound routine. Promotions, ships that were about to be launched, updates on the diplomatic efforts of the Federation. But nothing about the Dominion. "Computer, are there any updates about the status of relations with the Dominion? Or the Klingons?"

"Negative."

She frowned. The Khitomer Accords had been abandoned by the Klingons, which would postpone visiting the home world with Alexander. Jean-Luc didn't want to take chances -- even if Kurn welcomed them, it was no guarantee the rest of the Empire would. She knew, from being present when the admiral came to meet with them, that the Dominion was becoming more active -- she knew there were rumors of Changelings infiltrating the Federation. Unfortunately, her own clearance, though high, wasn't allowing her to hear actual news about it. That probably meant there was something serious afoot.

Deanna sighed, recycled her cool cup of tea, and went to the bedroom, to change out of the house dress into pants and a blouse. She had a thought about going to Command, to take advantage of the transporters to go to LaBarre -- distraction was still one of her favored means of coping. Mid-change, she stared at her reflection in the full length mirror. 

She knew Jean-Luc was on his way home, and while she examined her profile, he arrived. When he came in the room, saw her there wearing nothing but the usual bikini bottom and holding her bra dangled from one hand, he froze -- then shook himself out of it, approached slowly, pitching his helmet into the chair standing next to the closet door.

"Did you enjoy your ride?" she asked, smiling, knowing that he had.

He stared at her abdomen, brushing his fingers down and sliding his palm along the pronounced curve he found there. "How are you feeling?"

"A little nausea, nothing more. I'm actually changing to go for a walk. I thought I might go see Marie, this afternoon."

"How would you feel about a shuttle ride?"

Deanna blinked, and her smile changed from happy to happier. "A romantic shuttle ride, perhaps?"

"I'll change. We have a pilot waiting for us." He watched her reach for a little black dress, but she sensed a little anxiety, and let her hand drop.

"Not romantic in costume, then."

"It'll have to be a Starfleet shuttle," he said, shrugging apologetically. "I'd prefer having you in the dress, though."

"You can make it up to me by taking me out for dinner in the dress, when we get back. Should I wear a uniform?"

"You don't have to, unless you want to."

She put on some comfortable white leggings and a multi-layered sea green blouse, and slipped into some flat-soled shoes. By the time she had her hair brushed and tied back, Jean-Luc had also changed. Into one of the new uniforms -- black with gray shoulders, red shirt. He looked quite good in uniform, as usual.

"Mmm," she commented, tracing the seam across the front of his jacket with a fingertip.

"So you don't want to go," he said, amused, aroused a little by the tickle of her lips along his jaw.

Deanna took his hand, stepped back, and gave him a devious smile. "I'll be good. Where are we going?"

"You'll see," he said, raising his right hand to tap his commbadge.

He had them beamed to Command, and walked with her to the shuttle pad on the roof. There was a small shuttle waiting for them. She didn't know the ensign waiting with it, but smiled at the young man and followed her husband in to take a seat at the back of the cockpit. She watched the sky thin in the viewport and turn into space, and turned to find him turning to look at her with his understated, pleased smile.

She was enjoying the time with him, alone. They tended to spend a lot of time with Alexander outside school hours, and The Project could lead to meetings or research. And then Jean-Luc still headed off to help his brother, some days, and he had occasional meetings with old friends. He made sure they had evenings together now and then, while Alexander was with his friends or with the Crushers for the night, and they still intended to send Alexander to stay for an extended period with the Rozhenkos, who had visited several times since they came to Earth.

"We're approaching the yards," the ensign announced. There were at least ten vessels in varying states of completion in a stationary orbit over San Francisco. One of them loomed large, and the shuttle slowed to a crawl as they angled in toward the nose of the sleek vessel to see the name and number on the elongated saucer section. Deanna noticed there were illuminated viewports along the framework erected around the newest incarnation of the _Enterprise_ , and there were people standing in them.

"There are a lot of onlookers," she commented. "More than I would expect."

"Starfleet is in recruitment mode, currently," he commented, sounding casual but feeling an undercurrent of mild dismay. "I understand there are now tours, for the prospective cadets -- trying to generate excitement and commitment."

Deanna glanced at him -- with the ensign present, she wouldn't comment further, but he gave her a look that said he understood well enough. Whatever it was between them, it had only become stronger, and in close proximity she suspected they were actually connected in thought as well as feeling. They had reviewed all the files Thomas had given her, and shared them with the admiral, and discussed it at length with her -- she knew the recruitment effort was a point of frustration for him, since they all knew it had to do with the oncoming anticipated conflict with the Dominion. Intelligence said that the chances of diplomatic resolution were minimal. Sisko, who they had taken to Deep Space Nine, had reported extensively on people coming through the wormhole, on the Maquis situation, and so had others stationed in the area.

"Would you like me to take her around again?" the ensign said exuberantly. He was enjoying the tour, almost more than they were.

"Yes, Ensign. What do you know about the Sovereign class starship?"

"It's a response to the Borg threat," the ensign exclaimed, moving the shuttle around to provide a view of the nacelles and sweeping aft in a long turn. "There are twelve type XIII phaser emitters. The bio-neurals are state of the art. The regenerative rotating shield system forced a major upgrade in the computer systems. They're still working out the details of the engines -- they're revising the plan, updating the engines to Class 8 after the initial trials showed that the Class 6 engines were woefully underpowered for a ship with upgraded armaments."

"We seem to have an expert showing us around," Jean-Luc said.

"No, sir, but I'm stationed at the shipyards as a pilot. I hear things. Ensigns are invisible, you know." The tow-headed ensign glanced back at them with a grin. "Are you taking her out, when she's ready?"

"That remains to be seen. As you say, she's a work in progress, and other opportunities may yet present themselves."

"Would you like to dock and take a look around? They may be tinkering with the engines and shields, but she has atmosphere and carpeting."

That led to connecting to an airlock, and emerging into a corridor on deck ten. And the interior was both like and unlike the 1701-D -- standard issue carpeting, in a lighter shade of gray. Sleek reflective surfaces, in the paneling. Well lit. She felt the throb of homesickness anew, and knew he was feeling the same. As they left the ensign in the shuttle to wait for them, he reached and caught her hand, walked with her to the nearest turbolift, asked for the bridge. She leaned on him and watched the flicker of the indicator.

The bridge was wholly different. Smaller, and consoles were redesigned. They went to their stations and looked around at the open panels, the bare circuitry here and there, the carpet-less floor panels, the black viewscreen. Deanna looked up, at the transparent dome overhead, and winced.

"Deanna?"

"Why do they think that's a good idea?" she murmured.

"I don't know. Are you all right?"

"Can we go see something else?"

His worry prickled, as they rode to deck four, and wandered through some of the bare, unfurnished cabins, then visited main sickbay. Here and there they met technicians working -- unlike the rest of Starfleet the shipyards staff seemed immune to hero worship. They focused on the work and ignored them. She walked with him, looking around but less interested in the ship than in calming herself, setting aside the persistent memory of being caught in a shower of shards of transparent aluminum stressed beyond tolerance levels, during the crash of the 1701-D. One of the larger pieces had caught her in the shoulder, breaking bones.

He escorted her back to deck ten, slowing as they approached the airlock, a hand in the small of her back. He gazed at her patiently.

"I suppose I'll need a counselor," she said quietly.

Jean-Luc put his arms around her and stood in the vacant corridor holding her head to his shoulder, feeling conflicted and wanting to help. Yearning.

"It doesn't mean I don't want you to have a ship. I just have some work to do, in counseling."

"It's not only that. This is... a warship."

Deanna closed her eyes and rested there with the slightly-abrasive fabric of the uniform against her cheek. "You had the specifications before we came."

"Yes. But looking at it in person is -- different."

"Home," she murmured.

The ensign was just as cheerful taking them back down to Command. He wasn't so careful as before -- instead of walking apart from her, he kept his arm around her. Trying to comfort her and still very worried. They strolled through the near-empty corridors of Command in the afternoon, and she knew there were plenty of people holed up in the offices and rooms around them, speaking of serious matters, as they rode a lift to the first floor and returned to the transporter room.

"I could ask for a different ship," he commented as they passed a bust of Ambassador Spock in the broad main corridor.

"Are there going to be anything but warships, with the Borg on one side and the Dominion on the other?"

"I -- " But he lost the power of speech. The conflict waged on in him.

"They're going to need you."

At the end of the corridor, instead of turning right down the side corridor toward the transporters, he slowed in front of a long window that featured a view of the bay, and the Golden Gate Bridge. There was a long lawn sloping away from the building toward the edge of the main Starfleet Command campus. A woman with two little children was walking across it, and he gazed out at the blue skies and sunshine.

"I was talking to one of our neighbors in the lobby the other day," he said at last. "A young woman who lives on the fifth floor. She has two children. She thinks Starfleet doesn't need weapons. That our focus should be on diplomacy, exclusively."

"The great divide. Fellow officers are surprised that you chose the apartment we're in, you know. It's unusual for 'fleeters to live in public housing. More comfortable to have neighbors who understand."

He shook his head, grimacing, and turned to her. "I suppose I've been out of touch with public sentiment, public opinions. It was startling. The first thing that sprang to mind was how ignorant she was."

"Of course she is. I'm sure the closest she's been to a Borg was watching the last newsfeed about them."

"It drove home that Earth isn't prepared for any of it," he said wearily. "So did my chat with Admiral Torrance. And then there are the ones who sound almost... paranoid. Admiral Leyton is quite vocal about the dangers."

"I don't think I've met him," Deanna said. Despite his initial thought to have her along when he met with admirals, he hadn't. This was, she knew, a manifestation of how protective he felt of her.

He glanced down the empty hallway. "I think he's probably -- "

"I think we should go," she said, before he could start talking openly about suspicions. He understood and felt gratitude that she'd caught him.

They were about to enter the first transporter room when Deanna sensed the admiral's proximity -- she hesitated, turning back, and watched Nechayev come around the corner in uniform. She faltered only for a second upon seeing them, and continued to stride forward in her usual businesslike manner.

"Good afternoon," she greeted with the familiar admiral formality.

"Admiral," Jean-Luc said with reserved caution. "We were just taking a tour of the shipyards."

"So you saw her? What did you think?"

"She's a fine vessel. A little work left to be done, I understand."

"Yes. Are you on your way home?"

"No, we were thinking about dinner," Deanna said.

"I was about to head for the Embarcadero myself. There's a nice little Italian restaurant I enjoy from time to time."

They transported out together and stepped off the public transporter pad at the south end of the Embarcadero. The sedate pace they set down the parkway toward the restaurants was by design -- it was one of several places they had chosen to discuss matters unfit for Starfleet environments.

"There's a lot of chatter the past couple of days," Elena said. "Some are saying it's only a matter of time."

"Invasion?" Jean-Luc asked. "It's what Leyton has been going on about."

"I knew something was going on when the newsfeed was completely silent on the matter," Deanna said.

It brought all progress to a halt. Elena stared at her with a fond smile -- it had come to this, after all. Jean-Luc had been prescient. Deanna couldn't deny that there was an actual friendship there, despite the disparity in rank. "I wonder if there aren't others who notice that pattern," she said with a head shake.

"Don't mention it around the office, we'll lose that minute advantage in a flood of false news reports," Jean-Luc exclaimed. "Do you think it's likely?"

Elena crossed her arms. "They're trying to develop ways to detect Changelings. Have you ever met one, either of you?"

"If I have, I don't know about it," Jean-Luc said. "I have to wonder if they actually mimic other organisms down to a cellular level."

"My mother knows one," Deanna said.

That led to another round of surprised staring. Jean-Luc crossed his arms, automatically, not really noticing that he now mirrored the admiral.

"You must mean Odo, the security chief on Deep Space Nine," Elena said at last.

"She really likes him. It isn't every man in the galaxy she calls friend -- she's far more likely to call them lovers, you know. She told me he's a lovely person, very respectful and kind."

"Did she mention anything useful about him, by any chance?" Jean-Luc asked.

"Like what? How to discriminate between him and other humanoids? Of course not. Haven't you met Mother?"

He gave her an incredulous scowl in return for her sarcasm. "You wouldn't happen to know whether or not she's coming back to Earth any time soon?"

"If you want I'll just tell her I'm pregnant, finally. She'll be here at warp ten and a half to fill the apartment with baby toys."

"Perhaps you would consider it? It might be helpful," Elena said.

Deanna sighed and gave Jean-Luc an apologetic smile. "We can call her and ask her to come back with Data, Mike and Leila."

"Good. You can get in touch with me in the usual way," Elena said. That entailed leaving a particular rock on her front lawn flipped over. Low tech, and effective, as the admiral's small home was on the other side of the park they went running in, and having Alexander kicking over things haphazardly as they passed by was a good cover. Elena would arrive at the apartment that evening, some time between six and seven.

"We'll let you know." Jean-Luc watched Elena stride off down the walk, and turned the other direction, back to the transporter pad. Once they were back in the apartment he started to laugh.

"Jean-Luc," she chided gently.

"Between you and your mother," he said. "Does she know everyone in the quadrant?"

"You could just talk to her, you know. She's more than happy to tell you everything, in her looping, haphazard way. I'm going to change into my little black dress, you should call Beverly and see if she or Wes can pick up Alexander from school."

"An early dinner?"

"Dinner, dancing, strolling on the shore, perhaps even taking me to that museum you mentioned before all of that?"

The amusement in his eyes faded to affection. He beamed at her, and nodded. "As you wish, my dear."

Deanna went with a light heart and a grin, more than happy to be caught up in the resonating love between them as she did so. At least there was one facet of her life that she could rely on to be a constant.

 


	50. Baby Makes... How Many Again?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm being vague about timeline, but roughly this coincides with season four of DS9 -- in early season four, Lwaxana meets Odo on the station. In late season four, she returns hugely pregnant and Odo saves her from some cultural glitch that would have her Tavnian husband steal the male child she's carrying and she would then never see it again. By marrying her, no less. 
> 
> With a gestation period of 10 months she would have to show up pregnant about... now. 
> 
> Worf also shows up in early season four of DS9. Except, not in this story.
> 
> Shortly, the episodes of DS9 where the Changeling bombs a conference on Earth and Sisko returns to deal with the difficulties of Admiral Leyton's coup attempt will ensue.

Data returned with Mother and came to the apartment just after lunch. It was one of Alexander's days off from school, and he and Rene were playing a game in the living room on the floor in front of the couch while Marie and Deanna lingered over coffee. Robert and Jean-Luc had gone off to meet with someone about casks to continue the project of recreating their winery.

Deanna tried not to be anxious, as she admitted them and stood away from the dining table to brace herself for the coming affectionate onslaught. Mother didn't disappoint -- she swept into the room, draped in crimson layers of heavy, soft fabric, the long billowing wings of the outfit reminding her of bat wings as Mother flung her arms out in joy and wrapped Deanna up in them.

"I'm so happy for you, dear, you didn't tell me you were pregnant," she cried happily as she smothered Deanna against the plush layers over her shoulder. "How much fun! We'll be pregnant together!"

Deanna stood back -- Mother looked the same as always and she sensed no additional presence, so it must be very early in the pregnancy. "You can't be serious, Mother."

"I can't wait for you to meet Jeyal -- he's such a wonderful man!"

Deanna sighed quietly, trying not to sound exasperated. "I'll look forward to it, Mother, but are you sure -- "

"Deanna, dear, you can be so serious sometimes, can't you just learn to enjoy life for once?"

Behind Mother, Data, Mike and Leila stood in front of the door -- rather than respond to that usual refrain Deanna smiled and stepped around Mother to greet each of them with a hug, then turned to look at the children. But Alexander had already helped Rene collect the pieces of their game, and came to smile and greet their guests, hugging Lwaxana. He told her to come see his room, as she hadn't yet, and he had new models on the shelves to show her. So off she went to dote on him. Rene came over to ask his mother for something to eat, and they went to the replicator.

"Your mother's a kick," Mike said quietly, grinning.

"I hope she didn't lead you into any... entanglements," Deanna said with a smirk. "Did you enjoy your time on Betazed?"

Leila glanced at Mike puckishly -- he shrugged. "Most of it. We did a little sightseeing."

"He's not mentioning how much he enjoyed the nude beaches," Leila said. "I enjoyed getting a nice tan."

Deanna tried not to be jealous of the nice tan. Her own was barely noticeable. The difficulties with a pale complexion. "Did you meet this Jeyal, by any chance?"

They exchanged a look. Data spoke up first. "Jeyal lives in a separate residence. Tavnian custom dictates that male and female be housed separately. In fact, when children are born, they live with the same-sex parent and are not aware that the other gender exists, until they are sixteen years of age."

Mike and Leila, and Marie, returning from the replicator, were all as shocked as Deanna. Lwaxana chose that moment to return all a-flutter and cheerful, Alexander in tow. Deanna put on a smile and told the boys to put on shoes, and they would go to the park. As they excitedly ran to do so, Deanna said, "Data, you said you completed the software to counter the illicit subroutines -- do you have it with you?"

"I stored it in a secure location. Two locations, in fact."

"Geordi is on campus this afternoon for his class if you want to talk to him. We'll meet this evening at seven, here -- we've already notified everyone," she said. She thought for a moment, and everyone waited, noticing her deliberation. Reluctantly, she continued. "I saw the new _Enterprise_. She's in the shipyards, in orbit above San Francisco."

Mike's grin wavered and collapsed. "You're not excited."

"Neither was the captain. We knew she was heavily armed, and armored, and the interior isn't complete. But it's not like the Galaxy class -- the overall design is a warship. Jean-Luc didn't join Starfleet to go to war."

Leila and Mike frowned, then. Leila crossed her arms across her belly, and sighed. "Not really what I signed up to do, either. And he's probably worried, about you and the baby."

"I'm sure he'll do the right thing," Lwaxana exclaimed with her usual exuberance. "You still have a house on Betazed, you know."

"You should go check on Spot," Deanna told Data. "We've all been taking turns going over to your apartment to feed her."

"We'll go, too," Leila said. "See you tonight."

As their friends left, Deanna turned to her mother. "Are you coming with us to the park? You can stay here if you like. Make yourself comfortable."

"No, dear, it's been ages -- I came to spend time with you. All this intrigue is beyond me, really. Why would you involve yourself in such things?"

The boys clattered up to them just then, so Deanna said nothing, smiled, herded them out the front door. Alexander told Rene about the playground at the park, and the obstacle course -- once they were strolling through the trees on the dirt paths of their local park, she let the boys have a try at the obstacle course. It would take them on a long meandering course through the area.

Deanna sat on a bench facing a small pond full of koi, and Marie and Lwaxana sat on either side of her.

"I suppose I can see the appeal of living here," Lwaxana said. "It's quite nice here in San Francisco. For an Earth town."

"Are you aware of Tavnian customs, Mother?"

Marie gave Lwaxana a sympathetic look, which was completely lost on her. Lwaxana waved her hand dismissively. "Oh, you must be talking about that ridiculous rule they have, about the children. Jeyal would never do that to me."

"Did you talk to him about that?"

Mother gave her a chiding look. "Of course I've talked to him! He's my husband! He assured me he would respect my wishes. We came to an agreement, to compromise."

"But you're living in separate homes. Is he on Betazed, or Tavny? Did you bring him with you?"

Mother let her hands drop into her lap, and stared at the path in front of them. It was a familiar turn of mood -- whenever she made impulsive decisions, she would defend, and then wilt when confronted.

"I'm not judging, Mother," Deanna said softly. "I want to know if you need help. It's always your choice, your business, who you are with, and why. But... Mother, you said you didn't want more children. I'm confused."

Mother laughed, but it was obvious she was trying too hard. Marie continued to feel sympathy and now glanced off, as if wondering if she should leave. Deanna looked at the sky overhead, and tabled it.

"How is the winery coming along? Have you finished the flooring on the second floor of the house yet?" She turned to Marie, appealing to her for a distraction.

Mother jumped into the conversation as usual, offering up the best contractors for the job -- that they were on Betazed was immaterial, so far as she was concerned. But it kept them on safe subjects until the boy returned, gasping for air and sweaty, both had clearly gotten off into the bushes, so back to the apartment they went. 

While Rene and Alexander took turns in the shower, Deanna got tea -- and while she stirred in a little sugar she sensed Jean-Luc returning. She turned from the table and went to the door as it opened. "Mother's here," she announced as Jean-Luc and his brother returned.

"Well, I wish we had some wine to offer you," Robert said. "But we had some bad luck."

"I was so sorry to hear your home burned down," Lwaxana exclaimed, hands clasped dramatically in front of her.

"Reconstruction is going well, however, and we'll soon be back in business -- Marie, we should go, we have a delivery coming this afternoon we should be home to receive," Robert exclaimed. He turned as Rene emerged from the cleanup effort, and gestured at his son. "You had a good time?"

"We went to the park," Rene said. "Can Alexander come home with us?"

"You can have him over when his grandmother is not visiting," Marie said. "Come along. We'll let you know when the housewarming will be, my dear," she exclaimed, holding out her arms and coming to kiss Deanna on the cheek. 

Having the Picards gone deprived them of a buffer zone -- as the door closed, Lwaxana fluttered away from the table, toward the replicator.

"Where is Mr. Homn?" Deanna asked, taking the opportunity to give her husband a fond smile. She thought about the situation, but it seemed he was too anxious to pick up on it. 

"I sent him to find accommodations -- I wouldn't want to impose. You don't have much room," Mother exclaimed in her usual manner. She glided back with a tall glass full of fruit and who knew what else, with a frothy head on top and a straw. She gave Deanna a chiding look in exchange for the disbelief. "Oh, Little One, it isn't alcoholic, don't look at me like that!"

"Mother has good news," Deanna said, using her most practiced diplomatic smile. "She's pregnant."

To his credit, Jean-Luc only gaped for a moment -- he backed a step, before catching himself, pasting on his own version of Deanna's smile, and turning to congratulate her. Mother beamed at him and sipped her frothy thing, and then as if it had just occurred to her that she was being neglectful of her son-in-law, she came at him with her free arm out, to kiss him on the cheek and pat his shoulder. 

At Deanna's urging Mother descended a few steps to settle on the couch, and that allowed Jean-Luc to recover from the unwanted affection enough to sit on the opposite end from her. Deanna sat with him, and her proximity helped him settle down. He was begrudgingly curious, but refusing to ask questions. 

"Did Jeyal go with Mr. Homn?" Deanna asked conversationally. 

"He has a busy schedule," Lwaxana enthused cheerfully. "He's an excellent businessman. He's a trader, has his own ship, that's how I met him -- he was wandering around the port in Elnara when I returned to Betazed and saw me, and knew he just had to have me -- I have that effect on men, you know. I expect he's on his way back to Betazed -- he brings in fine fabrics to sell."

"Jeyal is Tavnian," Deanna put in quietly. Jean-Luc blinked -- from the concern she guessed he knew what that really meant.

"So, he walked up to you and extolled your beauty and gave all the reasons he desired you, and that impressed you. Then later he explained that it was a wedding," Jean-Luc said. 

It caught Mother off guard. "It was a pleasant surprise," she insisted, with less enthusiasm.

"I suppose if you get tired of him, you can always simply marry someone else," Jean-Luc said casually. "That's one of the ways you can annul a Tavnian marriage."

"Pish, I'm certain it won't come to that," Mother replied -- more enthusiastic than before.

"Mother, I was wondering if you could tell me more about your friend, Odo," Deanna said.

At once Lwaxana stared at her -- the suspicion radiated from her. "You don't think he's part of your little conspiracy?"

"No, Mother, I didn't say that. He wouldn't be station security on a Federation space station if he was." Of course, she had no way of knowing one way or the other, but that was neither here nor there. "You said he was unique."

For once, Mother said nothing and sipped her drink.

"There are concerns that Changelings -- not Odo -- are infiltrating Federation worlds," Deanna said, knowing well enough that she had to have heard the rumors.

"What does that have to do with Odo?" 

"Nothing. I was curious as to whether you found him to be immune to telepathy. You've always seemed fascinated by men you could not read."

"That may have been appealing at first but I assure you there is much more to him than that," Lwaxana exclaimed. "Why, just think of the potential -- he can take any form, anything at all! Not being able to sense him doesn't matter a bit -- he's one of the most forthright men I've ever met. I do appreciate honesty, you know."

"Did you see him change form?" It wasn't one of the questions she needed answered, but Deanna knew how to draw out information, especially with Mother. "It must be an amazing thing to see."

"I was with him when he turned liquid. Surprising that a man could do such a thing. He can turn into a bird, or a box, or anything he pleases. You should go meet him, dear. He's very standoffish at first, but you have plenty of experience with that sort of man."

Jean-Luc sprang off the couch then, unable to sit idly by while she teased him in the roundabout way she used to maintain deniability. "Would you like something to drink? I'm going to get some tea," he said to Deanna.

"Crackers, and water," she replied. Resorting to the usual snack of choice while she was feeling the nausea hinted too broadly -- Mother gave her a curious look. "Morning sickness set in five weeks ago, and it isn't going away."

"Oh, yes, I remember that," Mother exclaimed almost joyfully, and she was off -- memories of being pregnant, comparisons between the pregnancies she'd had, at least the ones that had been carried to term, and as Jean-Luc brought back a plate of crackers and glass of water for her, Deanna got to sit through it all, plus the experiences of some of her female cousins, several of Mother's friends, and advice from her mother's obstetrician. 

It took Alexander's return to end the monologue. "Are you talking about babies again?" He plopped down on Deanna's right and leaned against her.

"Mother is having one, too, so yes." Deanna smoothed back his hair, which was still a little damp. He'd dressed in one of his nicer red shirts, as if anticipating being taken out somewhere.

"You're having a baby?" Alexander exclaimed, sitting up with a grin.

"Yes, dear, you're going to have an uncle!" Lwaxana cried.

The joy in Alexander's face twisted to a surprised sort of suspicion. "That's... weird."

"Only on Earth, dear." Mother sipped the last of her drink, set the glass on an end table, and clapped her hands together. "Well! My dears, I would like to take my grandson out for a nice dinner. Mr. Homn is waiting in the lobby for us."

"If you take your communicator, you can go," Deanna said, giving Alexander a one-armed hug. 

"Are you feeling okay, Mom?"

"I'm fine," she said with a warm smile. He'd had the misfortune of being present during an unexpected sudden bout of nausea, one morning, and since Klingons didn't vomit he had been horrified. Now he worried about her, more or less all the time, and frequently checked in to be sure she wasn't about to erupt. "Go have fun with Mother. I bet you could convince her to take you to the planetarium, if you try."

"Or maybe we could do something fun," Lwaxana exclaimed, rising to swish toward the door. "Come along, my little tiger."

Jean-Luc sat fuming a little, for a moment after the door closed behind them. He sighed, gave it up, leaned and kissed her briefly. 

"I thought that went well," she said calmly.

"We need to talk," he said, sinking into a very serious mood.

"I promise that I will not leave our children with her unsupervised, until they are twelve or older."

The disbelief in his face made her smile. "Thank you, for that. But I had hoped to discuss something else."

 "All right." She put a hand on his thigh. He spent a moment eyeing that hand, before speaking again.

"If your mother -- "

"No," she cut in, looking him in the eye. "I'm not going to rescue her from this."

Jean-Luc closed his mouth and sat with that for a moment. "You don't think -- "

"Mother is on her own," Deanna said sternly. "She never thinks before she acts, and she won't ask for help. She has good doctors, good attorneys, and Mr. Homn. I used to try, so hard, to talk her around. I used to rush to her side. I used to hold her hand. I'm willing to sympathize, to listen. I love her, but I can't be her caretaker."

"I never thought I would hear you say something like that."

"I learned, a long time ago, that nothing I do or say will influence her. She's wonderful with children, she's intelligent when it comes to diplomacy and intrigue, appearances to the contrary. But she's an idiot when it comes to men. Jean-Luc, she's had ten miscarriages. I go hold her while she cries, and she tells me she never wants to have another child. She's going to give in every time she falls for another man, because she chooses to 'stay positive' at all costs and ignore warning signs. Like cultural differences -- she didn't even ask about his culture before she found out she was pregnant, I would guess."

He smiled sadly, and leaned back as he gazed out the window. A shuttle flew by. "You don't think she might eventually learn from anything?"

"She's been repeating her pattern for ninety years. I've been told by relatives that she never listened, to her sister, to her parents, to aunts, or grandparents. She doesn't listen to me, whether I'm direct, indirect, loud, quiet." She stared at him. "What?"

"You sound like me," he said, turning back to her. "But you flipped my brother with three sentences. I 'knew' he would never change, because he always resisted change, but he changed."

Deanna closed her eyes -- the wave of anger rose, and fell. "I suppose you could give it a try?"

"Me??"

"I've been trying since I was twelve. It's not working."

His pained smile wasn't encouraging, either. "Well. Apparently, all her deficiencies aside, she's given us a few hours to ourselves."

She leaned against him, pushing herself under his arm, nuzzling against his shoulder. He let her nap, and relaxed quite a bit himself. She knew he was still thinking serious thoughts, but dealing with Mother had drained her reserves. She'd been tired quite a lot over the past weeks, thanks to the pregnancy. If she was going to be of any use in the meeting, she needed a little rest.


	51. Betazoid Mind Magic

Three days after the conclusion of her class, Deanna received a message offering her a temporary job filling in for Nechayev's adjutant, who would be on an extended vacation. She informed her son while having breakfast with Jean-Luc, Alexander and Beverly.

"Is that like a promotion?" Alexander exclaimed. "What's an adjutant?"

"It's an officer who does administrative work for a high ranking officer -- scheduling appointments and handling correspondence," Jean-Luc explained. He smiled across the table at Deanna. They had been expecting the message, as it was the result of discussion in one of the meetings.

"I thought you were a counselor."

"I am. This would be a temporary assignment."

Alexander chewed cereal. "So are you going to do it?"

"Yes. It's only for a month, after all." Just long enough to be sure she had an opportunity to meet the full cycle of admirals and other bureaucrats Nechayev met with on a regular basis. "And then you're going to stay with Sergei and Helena for three weeks, and we're going on our vacation."

"I guess that means you'll be spending more time with me, since she'll be working all day," Jean-Luc said, smiling at the boy.

Alexander grinned at him. "That's okay."

"Hopefully you'll stop feeling nausea soon," Beverly said. "I hope the admiral will let you take care of yourself."

"I'm sure it will be fine," Deanna said. She turned to Alexander. "I'll miss having the afternoons with you,  _tigryonak._ " She ran her hand over his hair. He wasn't crying about the loss of his father any more, and more of their time was spent enjoying themselves. Trips to the park and the beach, games, and going with other families to parties or picnics had been more frequent than reviewing anger management.  Alexander was handling his anger quite well lately. There had been incidents with other boys getting angry and pushing and shoving -- Alexander hadn't overreacted. His teacher had commented that he was one of the calmer students in her class.

"You've done very well in school," Jean-Luc commented. "And I have to say I'm proud of how you've managed your anger, lately. Your teacher has good things to say about you, these past few weeks."

Alexander turned bashful -- he shot a look at Deanna and ducked his head, his grin going shy. But praise from his stepfather pleased him far more than praise from her, probably because Jean-Luc gave it so sparingly.

Deanna ignored everyone at the table in favor of drinking her coffee and rising to recycle her plate -- she was more than a little proud of how far both of them had come, and didn't want to embarrass either of them. It was, she realized, nearly a year since Worf's death. Jean-Luc had gone from tongue-tied avoidance to praising Alexander's successes, and handling the minor upsets of a child with confidence. The more comfortable and confident he was with Alexander, the more their foster son had gained confidence of his own. Jean-Luc tended to let Alexander make choices and support the structure she had established early on, rather than try to dictate behavior -- consistency and acceptance had helped more than anything else, she suspected.

Beverly had gotten past being surprised by Jean-Luc's level of comfort with Alexander, but she watched the affectionate exchange between the two proudly. Deanna knew their friend had at times coached Jean-Luc in parenting. That had helped him feel more comfortable with attempting to fill in as a father figure, so Deanna counted that as beneficial despite Beverly's occasional criticism of how structured they had made things. Deanna knew Beverly was drawing on her own experience, with easygoing Wesley, and that Alexander needed something more.

"I'm going to take Alexander to school a bit early, so I can go in with you," Jean-Luc said. 

"Okay. That will give me time to finish hating the maternity uniform." Deanna watched them go -- Alexander hurried to collect his project, an old-fashioned airplane, and flashed her a smile as Jean-Luc herded him out the door.

"You don't finish hating the maternity uniform," Beverly said.

"I don't anticipate that I will. Is this your day off?" Usually the doctor was at the lab early.

Beverly went through a brief internal conflict, ending it as she started to speak. "I quit the project."

Frowning, Deanna sat down again instead of going to replicate the uniform. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know." Beverly smiled nervously, pushing her long hair behind her right ear. She'd let it grow out and added blonde highlights. "Maybe I'm paranoid, after all these discussions of devious doings. Maybe I'm imagining it. But every time I turned around, Kate Pulaski was in our lab, and I really started to think she must be watching me."

Deanna hoped the jolt of near-panic didn't show in her eyes. "Really? Isn't she one of the department heads, in Starfleet Medical?"

"Yes. But not research. She's teaching, and she's the supervisor in the medical center, supporting the Academy and Command. I would be examining samples or documenting something, and suddenly I felt eyes on me -- I would turn around and there she would be, talking to my project supervisor. I caught her staring at me twice."

"That's awkward. Did she say anything to you?"

"Once, just saying hello, asking how I've been since returning to Earth. She asked how Wes was doing." 

Deanna stopped on the verge of spilling everything. But the chain of events that might trigger was enough to make her hesitate and second-guess. Beverly wouldn't have quit a project for no reason; that she was doubting herself now wasn't relevant. Her instinct was generally good.

"You've got that face. What is it?" Beverly asked.

"I'm just thinking about Kate, while she was aboard. How well do you know her?"

"Not well at all. That was part of what I found alarming. I kept thinking I couldn't be right, that she couldn't be stalking me, but she isn't friends with the supervisor -- Gillian was a little concerned about it, the third time she came back, to the point that she was questioning whether Kate was there to spy on us. She was mostly joking, but you know how that goes."

"I have to keep myself from looking over my shoulder, sometimes, too. But it does sound odd. Maybe I'll find out something over the next month that will shed some light on things. I haven't talked to Kate lately, maybe I'll invite her to lunch and see how that goes."

"Was she a good friend to you, when she was aboard?"

"I don't think I would go that far. Friendly, and I corresponded with her semi-regularly after she left. But not recently. So what are you going to do now?"

"Figure out what to do next." Beverly sighed, and looked up from the surface of the glossy black table. "I should go. You need to go to work."

Deanna saw her off with a promise to meet later in the week, and went to the bedroom, to face the neatly-folded uniform on the end of the bed -- after putting it on she stared at her reflection, hating the way the pleats didn't drape but stuck out at angles. For some reason, her belly had gone round and she thought she looked more like eight months than four and a half. 

Jean-Luc came to the bedroom to find her trying to smooth down the pleats. "It's not that bad."

She glared, incredulous, and shook her head, turning to view her profile. "This is ridiculous. And I liked the blue better."

"I don't know, red suits you well enough," he said mildly. He already wore the uniform pants, and threw off the green shirt he'd worn to the school to put on the shirt and jacket. 

"I'm not going to like this."

"I don't like it either. But it was a good idea."

 "You don't have to approve my ideas, you know."

They left the apartment and rode the lift down to the lobby. Jean-Luc gazed at her without touching her, as if putting on the uniform restrained him. She smiled at him, leaned, turned her head, and got as far as nibbling his ear lobe before the lift opened and they had to leave it. She behaved herself on the journey from the Grenada to Starfleet Command via public transit, and all the way from the entrance to the fleet admiral's office on the twenty-third floor.

"You didn't wear an inverse Picard today," he commented as they left the lift. "I'm disappointed."

"I want to point out that you have yet to grow a beard. You would look good with one."

He growled a little, which wasn't without its own appeal, and they rounded the corner and walked to the end of the corridor, past the office doors of other admirals. As they approached the door opened, and they glanced at each other and went through to the front office, to find a young Vulcan lieutenant-commander at a desk. She rose and bowed slightly.

"Captain Picard. And you must be Commander Troi. I understand you are to fill my position, while I am on Vulcan."

"Yes," Deanna said. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Lieutenant-Commander T'Mir."

"I will brief you on your duties. I have compiled detailed notes for your review, as well. Do you have an appointment with Admiral Nechayev, Captain? It is not on her schedule."

"No, I was...."

"My husband wanted to see me off to work," Deanna said with a subdued smile. She turned a warmer smile on him. "I'll see you later."

The familiar Captain Picard version of his fond smile was his only response. He turned with a nod and departed. She refocused on her tutor, to find her holding out a padd.

Thus ensued four hours of thorough-as-only-a-Vulcan-could-be instruction, and though her head started to hurt a little she thought she did tolerably well keeping up. Then T'Mir gave her a nod, polite by Vulcan standards, and departed. So, absent orders to the contrary, Deanna sat down and addressed the computer terminal on the desk -- after a retinal scan the three monitors sprang to life and displayed the admiral's appointment schedule, a larger calendar of assignments and appointments of other admirals, diplomatic events, and a moving feed of updates from the newsfeeds, and on the third screen an index of messages -- the admiral's and her own, though she had no messages yet. T'Mir had indicated she had dealt with all the messages she'd had, and that any new ones would be addressed to her.

The office door opened -- out came two admirals, a Bolian she didn't recognize and -- much to her chagrin -- Admiral Jellico. Neither one of them spared her a look as they departed at a quick clip. Then Nechayev emerged, stopped at the end of the desk, and smiled down at her. "Good morning, Commander. I see T'Mir has already departed?"

"Yes -- I'm sorry. Do you prefer sir, or ma'am?" Sometimes the female flag officers disliked the use of 'sir.'

"The former is fine. You were briefed?"

"Yes, sir. I was familiarizing myself with your schedule for the day, prior to reviewing the notes she provided."

Elena cocked her head and her extremely-subdued smile twitched a little. Amusement, and some fondness. But she stayed on script, sounding as though she knew little about Deanna. They were assuming everything in the office would be monitored. "How far along are you?"

"Almost five months."

"If you require more frequent breaks or have any other... needs, I hope that you feel you can assert yourself. I may not have children but I do understand that pregnancy can cause a variety of discomforts, and I would prefer you did not incapacitate yourself. I do appreciate your willingness to fill in while T'Mir is gone, Commander."

"Of course. Thank you, sir. Your next appointment is approaching."

Her right eyebrow twitched, then the admiral raised her head when the door opened and Admiral Leyton came in. He smiled in greeting, then noticed the change in staff, and the quality of his smile shifted subtly. The same old reaction from a human male -- Deanna put on her distant, polite, slightly-cool but pleasant smile, maintained an upright and formal posture, and said nothing.

"Thank you, Commander," Nechayev said. "Come in, James."

Deanna turned back to her monitors, noted she had an hour before Leyton left and the admiral had to depart for a meeting, and took a deep breath. The baby fluttered, reminding her she had a future to build, and she smiled and started to review T'Mir's notes.

 

\---------------

 

Deanna's family settled into a new routine. To be on time each day, they would run in the park -- the mild to cold temperatures slowly moved on to spring warming, and the trees in the park leafed out while the dormant flowering plants started to bud. After showering and breakfast, they dropped Alexander at school and Jean-Luc went with her to Command. He wasn't complaining, but he'd gotten used to having her home whenever he was, and she knew, because she sensed him often throughout the day, that he was often thinking about her and worrying about her.

Her days were pretty boring, with managing the endless appointments and meetings, and fielding calls to the admiral's office. It amazed her how many irate callers there could be in a day. She suspected the unpopular decisions the admiral had made were behind them. She started hanging up on them, when the shouting or cursing began. Boring meant she could focus on other things, like what she sensed from the people in the building, particularly ones that came through the door. Or making contact with Jean-Luc, to share a moment here and there.

Three weeks to the day after she started working there, Leyton came back. Deanna jumped a little as the door opened. He entered the front office and smiled diffidently, shocking her. She had sensed nothing at all. She had, before, but the man standing in front of her might as well be a painting, instead of a humanoid.

"Good morning, Admiral. The fleet admiral will be with you shortly. Please have a seat." Deanna touched the console, turning on the alert that told Nechayev she had someone waiting. Elena emerged from her office to glance at her before standing aside to let Leyton go in.

"This was delivered for you, sir," Deanna said, waving a hand at the small vase of flowers she'd brought in the day before. Every few days she brought in another, with different flowers in it, to use as a prop. Claiming it had been delivered was their signal that not all was as it seemed with a visitor.

"Thank you, Commander. Contact Admiral Delaney and let him know I'd like to move his appointment an hour earlier. I'm hoping to visit the gym before lunch."

"I'll make a reservation at the gym and reschedule the appointment, sir."

When Elena was in the office with the door closed, Deanna contacted the chief of Starfleet security as requested and made the change, adding the prearranged code word into the conversation that would tell him there was likely a Changeling in the office. She also made the reservation in the private gym in the basement for the admiral.

The hour crawled by, while Deanna paid attention to Elena and pretended to be going through messages on the computer and then looked up Admiral Leyton's record. Leyton came out without incident, as Delaney arrived. "James," he exclaimed in a hail-well-met exuberant way, reaching to shake hands.

"Charles," Leyton said. The hand clasp wasn't enthusiastic. “If you’ll excuse me.”

Delaney blocked the door casually, smiling lazily. “I have a question for you, James. Do you remember the name of the woman we met at Mad Dog last week?”

Leyton didn’t show any sign of consternation or confusion; he blinked and his head tilted as if giving the matter some thought. “I don’t immediately recall. Sorry.”

“Admiral Leyton, your daughter has been trying to reach you,” Deanna said. She knew that his daughter was deceased.

“I’ll call -- “ Leyton turned in place to stare at her. It must be registering that they were testing him.

“Why don’t you come with me?” Delaney said. His smile had vanished.

“Really, I have something to -- “

The outer door opened, and another Leyton came in. A flurry of activity ensued, Nechayev shouted, and Deanna pulled the phaser from the underside of the desk and waited -- in a few seconds the Changeling, having morphed from a person to a cloud to a long snake-like form that whipped around the ankles of two admirals avoiding the attempts to kick it or step on it, shot for the door, and it was there that she had aimed the weapon, so it was almost reflex to fire the instant the door opened.

The energy beam transfixed the Changeling, and a sustained beam made it begin to bubble. She stopped firing but kept it trained on the being. It continued to bubble a little, like heated tar.

“Admiral Leyton, are you all right?” she asked calmly.

“I just awakened in my office and realized I missed the appointment.” Leyton was beginning the transition from shock to fury. “This is a Changeling -- perhaps now I will be taken seriously?”

Delaney stepped forward so the door would open and called out to someone outside the office. “Lieutenant, get the stasis box over here. Take this down to Medical -- it might still be alive.”

Elena was regarding Deanna with wary appreciation. “I see my choice of adjutant has paid off. Thank you, Commander.”

“How did you know?” Leyton asked.

Deanna appraised him for a few seconds, and decided that minimal information might be best. There was something about him that didn’t feel right. “You were here in the office before. I can distinguish between individuals well enough. I sensed it was not you.”

The misinformation registered with Elena as a warning. She knew that Deanna couldn't sense a Changeling. “Commander, were you injured?”

“No, sir, I’m fine.”

“James, you should go to the medical center and be examined to determine what you were drugged with. Mark, please come in,” Elena said to the two admirals, and Delaney followed her into her office. Leyton gave Deanna a nod and departed at a brisk pace.

Deanna felt left out -- but then, she was only an adjutant at the moment, and neither Leyton nor Delaney was part of their little anti-conspiracy conspiracy. So she sat for a moment, and focused, and in a moment’s time had updated Jean-Luc telepathically on the development.

Then not five minutes later, Elena came out with Delaney. “I would like to accelerate things,” Elena said. “Admiral Delaney feels we might be able to find other Changelings, if we have you attend the reception for the delegates from Korgana IV. Ordinarily, you wouldn’t be invited, but Captain Picard is well known in the Diplomatic Corps.”

“When is it?”

“It will be tomorrow night at seventeen hundred hours. Formal dress, of course.”

“I’ll check with him.”

“We’re going to speak to the commander-in-chief," Elena informed her. "Contact my next two appointments and reschedule to later in the week, if you would."

After they were gone, Deanna made the necessary calls and canceled the gym reservations, since that had merely been her excuse for moving up Delaney's appointment, then locked down her terminal and went to lunch a little early. The commissary in the building devoted to Starfleet Command's administrative department, and the collected flag officers that ran Starfleet, was a cut above mess halls and cafeterias -- it had more in common with the restaurants on the Embarcadero. Only one didn't pay for anything. If you worked in the building, you were provided a meal.

The dining hall was starting to fill, so she chose a small table outside on the broad balcony, which was less crowded. When the waiter brought her order she started with the soup and continued to ignore the attention she was getting from someone. She'd long ago stopped being tempted to look around when she sensed something like that. Sometimes, it wasn't her the person focused on -- though she was certain this time it was. When someone focused on her it felt like being poked. She thought it might be Jellico.

"You're new," a male voice exclaimed, in a reedy baritone.

Deanna smiled by default and raised her eyes from her soup and sandwich to find a vice admiral standing there -- middle aged, fit, pale blond hair and a sparse matching beard peppered with gray. "I am relatively new. I think you may be as well, as I've been here for lunch for three weeks and haven't seen you. Or perhaps I haven't noticed you. I always sit outside."

"I don't come here often. I tend to go out for lunch. But, I see I've been missing out by doing so -- I'm Admiral Torrance. I'm in Starfleet Operations."

"Commander Deanna Troi, adjutant to Admiral Nechayev."

His smile, and the mood behind it, didn't waver. "I know. Someone told me that you'd been filling in -- I may not be in Nechayev's office for meetings but I have friends that do. You were aboard the _Enterprise_ , yes?"

"I was the ship's counselor."

"So you've decided to move to Earth and change departments. I can't blame you -- from the chatter coming down it looks like we're headed for war."

Deanna considered confessing that wasn't necessarily so, but continued to smile benignly and ignore the man's interested attraction. "What can I do for you, Admiral?"

It surprised her that the first attempt to thwart the man's intent worked. He sat back a little in the chair and immediately, interest waned. "I wouldn't impose that way. I merely...."

She smiled more brightly, amused lights in her eyes. 

"Are you enjoying your time here at Command?" 

Deanna nodded. "It's interesting to me that the admirals all seem so guarded, all the time."

That put him on edge. A wrinkle formed between his brows. "Guarded?"

"I suppose it's natural to be serious and sober all the time, dealing with the more serious matters that affect the entirety of Starfleet. But I had supposed that there would at least be a bit of levity at meal times. It's very quiet here, usually. Humans have a tendency to cope with the seriousness of situations using humor, at least some of the time."

A slight smile, at that. "That sounds like something a counselor would say."

"I wonder why." Deanna took the opportunity to glance around at other faces. There was Jellico, in the corner, just inside the large windows. He had been looking at her and averted his eyes the instant he noticed she was paying attention. "Do you know Admiral Jellico?"

His response was immediate distaste -- interesting. "I've met him. But he's in a different department."

"I met him some time ago. He's an ass."

It startled him into staring at her. This time, when he smiled, there were laugh lines at the corners of his green eyes. "He is. And it doesn't take a Betazoid or a counselor to see it."

"True. It was a fairly universal opinion, during his brief stay on the _Enterprise_. I could have sworn he had some other agenda -- although I suppose in retrospect that it might have seemed that way to me, after years with Captain Picard, who always kept his officers informed as much as possible of what was going on. Captain Picard prefers staff who think for themselves. Following blindly leads to officers making poor choices."

"Is it true," Torrance began slowly, pausing for a second or two, "that Captain Picard is an idealist?"

"I believe that's the reputation he has around here. I know he understands reality but insists upon holding fast to his own principles, which makes him unpopular with some admirals, particularly ones who don't have principles themselves beyond the ends justifying the means."

That led to a period of contemplation during which Deanna ate another bite of her sandwich and sipped her water. Torrance went through an internal debate, feeling a spike of anxiety as he did so, and then he settled out into a decision he made that still made him anxious but not so alarmed as whatever he'd been thinking initially.

"You sound as though you know him well," Torrance said at last.

"I do. He's my husband."

That sent him through another round of surprise and anxiety, but he settled more quickly. "I see. That must have made being his counselor difficult."

"That would be unethical. He hasn't needed therapy since well before we got together."

"Picard is a legend. I've been hoping to meet him."

"If you are coming tomorrow to the reception for the Korgan delegates, you'll have the opportunity."

Torrance glanced at a few people leaving the balcony, heading inside, and then at the padd he held. "It's time for me to be in one of those dreadful meetings we admirals are hired to attend -- perhaps I'll see you at the reception."

He left her there and she finished her soup. Returning to her office, she checked in -- Jean-Luc was fine, and Alexander as usual had his focus on something frustrating -- math was after lunch. More messages had piled up so she started weeding out bitter diatribes. She asked the computer to do the filtering, to keep the ones with actual threats in them, and there hadn't been any so far. And back to the schedule she went -- there was nothing left on the admiral's schedule now that the last two appointments were canceled. This might, she decided, be a good time to follow up on the concern she had about Pulaski's appearances in Beverly's lab. Sufficient time had passed that Kate wouldn't necessarily connect her showing up with Beverly's departure from the research project. 

Deanna left a recorded message for the admiral, citing a need to go to the medical center -- being a first-time mother, it wouldn't raise suspicion for her to have heightened anxiety leading to excessive clinic visits. She left the building and walked the half-kilometer between manicured lawns to the medical clinic. At the reception desk, she gave her name, hyperventilating a little and wide-eyed, and reported she had abdominal pain and she worried for the baby. She actually had a little heartburn, which had been occurring after meals for about a week or so. 

The wait wasn't long, as there were no people in the waiting room, and when she went in the exam room, the nurse went through the routine scans and pronounced her fine. She smiled happily at the image of the baby, when the nurse projected it on the screen to reassure her. She thanked the nurse and put her jacket back on, and turned to go.

In the corridor Kate called her name. She turned, waited, but didn't smile as Kate Pulaski approached. They appraised each other for a moment.

"Hello, Kate," Deanna said softly.

"Will you join me in my office for tea? I haven't seen you in a long time," Kate said, putting on a fond smile. She felt less affection than she showed.

"I suppose that would be fine -- I was going to return to work, but I can spare a few minutes."

 "Work?" Kate repeated in a pleasant tone, leading the way down the hall.

"I've been taking some temporary assignments. Waiting for the next ship assignment."

"Which I would assume would be the same as the last, as a counselor under Picard's command?" Kate shot her a smirk as she entered her office and went to the replicator. Deanna glanced around at the sparse decor and spotless desk, and took a seat. "Is everything all right?"

"Yes. Just a little tummy trouble -- I got a little anxious. I guess Jean-Luc's anxiety is contagious, he hovers."

Kate handed her a cup of what smelled like chamomile, and went to her desk to sit behind it with her own cup. "I'll bet he's anxious. Having a child involves a long term commitment. He's not used to that."

Deanna narrowed her eyes at Kate over the top of her cup.

"What?"

"You think Starfleet isn't a long term commitment, or marriage, or friendship."

Kate gaped for a few seconds. "Well. Aren't you sneaky, getting married without full media coverage."

"I'm as sneaky as anyone who wants to spend that time with friends and family despite the media's interest. But not as sneaky as others."

Kate rolled her eyes. "I didn't ask for any of that, and you know it."

"You're not doing anything about it, either. You just accept it."

"Deanna," she began, frustrated, but the usual process began, making her hesitate.

"Living your life honestly without subterfuge makes that hesitation unnecessary, you know."

"I didn't realize you were so angry at me," Kate said softly.

"For not letting me let you be a friend, yes."

"I am a friend." She wasn't lying, which had been the only reason Deanna had continued to act that way, all along.

"Unless there's some assignment that has to do with me, yes."

Kate stared at her, chin balanced on the heel of her hand. "You're speaking openly about this."

"You started it, which leads me to assume you know you're not being monitored."

Another eye roll. "Did you hear about the Changeling?"

"I think that's above my security clearance."

"He was brought in this morning, to be examined -- they wanted it alive. I think it might survive."

"And why do I want to know about that?"

"You shot it, didn't you?"

Deanna sipped chamomile, and shifted in the uncomfortable chair. "Before it could imitate someone else and get away."

"You should stay out of it, Deanna. I mean it. Keep being neutral."

"I'm sure Starfleet Security has an idea they are here already. If I have orders to protect the fleet admiral or to keep her activities confidential, it's my job to do that. I'm a Starfleet officer and I took a temporary job, Kate, so I'm as neutral as I'm going to get."

Kate put the cup on the desk with a crack, and leaned back in the chair. "I asked you to come in hoping you and I could restart a friendship. I didn't realize you wanted to play inquisitor."

"You tell them things about me. You told them I was pregnant, after violating confidentiality to obtain the information. If you want me to be a friend, you should be consistent about it and not harass me and make veiled threats -- you frightened us sending Thomas that way. That's not consistent with your insistence that I stay out of things, you know."

Kate brooded, staring now at the floor. She was trying to walk that line, again, and in the circumstances it was wearing on Deanna's nerves. She knew better than to completely trust Kate, and wished she could go back to the days when she thought Kate was just another Starfleet doctor.

"I didn't send Thomas to you, and I didn't know you were pregnant," Kate said at last. She wasn't lying.

"He didn't lie to me, and you aren't lying to me. Did someone impersonating you send Thomas, perhaps?"

It shocked Kate. She went wide-eyed and sober. "How would I know that?"

"Wouldn't it be nice to trust the people you work with?"

"Your sarcasm isn't like you, and I prefer the Deanna Troi who was sweet and honest, thank you very much. I've already told you I wish there was a way to un-make some of the choices I've made, but it's water under the bridge, and I'm doing the best I can."

"I prefer to feel as though raising my children was a safe thing to do. I prefer to have them in a world that doesn't manipulate and lie, because I want them to be honest and principled," she spat. "If you can't help me do that you're no good to me." Deanna rose and turned for the door.

"It's impossible," Kate exclaimed. "There's no way to extricate them from the equation, and you know it. They'll detect anyone who tries and stop them, or fool them into thinking they succeeded, so everyone can go back to living an innocent life in service to the Federation. Memory wipes and 'accidents' happen."

Deanna kept walking. As she reached it and the door opened, a hand cupped her shoulder. She turned -- Kate took her arm and pulled her back from the door, so it would close again.

"Please tell me you're not already trying," Kate murmured.

"I'm going back to my office and then I'm going on vacation. If Jean-Luc is offered a vessel again I'll probably go with him, in whatever capacity makes the most sense. You've already made it clear I'm stupid to do anything else, Kate," she replied. "You're right, that I have too much to lose. But it's frustrating, and there's still the threat -- I don't know if I'm even safe any more."

Kate crossed her arms tightly and tried to suppress a frown by pressing her lips together. "I don't think you have anything to worry about," she whispered, as if afraid of being overheard. "There are other things afoot, now."

"So they'll stay away from us?"

"I think so."

"Kate, you don't really believe that."

Kate's eyes fell. "You need to be on your guard, from Will Riker."

"What?? He's in -- they took him out," Deanna exclaimed, angry. "They wanted me to agree to that deal so he could get out and travel freely in the Federation. Didn't they?"

"Don't say a word. Leave it be. Just be aware and avoid him if you sense him."

"I suppose a restraining order won't hold any power over him, if he can't be kept in a secure facility. You'd better make sure he doesn't come near us. Alexander will want to hurt him, and I can't guarantee that I won't either, if it's the only way to get the Rikers out of our lives for good."

Kate gave her a desolate look. "You know I have as much control as you do."

Deanna whirled and stormed out of the room, trying to breathe and control the despair-driven anger. Now her stomach was truly upset, and she burst into the warm spring air, and strode briskly up the walk, trying to walk it off before she had to be back in the fleet admiral's office.

 


	52. Hope and Despair

Deanna lasted until everyone got there, at least -- she tried to stay calm, relaxed, but the end result was stern and quiet. When Jean-Luc picked her up at Nechayev's office, the admiral hadn't returned -- Elena had been absent all afternoon, and Deanna's message to her hadn't been played back. Deanna could sense Elena and knew things were fine, with her -- she'd been in a highly anxious state since the Changeling, which made complete sense since there was no way yet to test people for that, though Research had been working on it with Medical.

Jean-Luc had given her a look that questioned, but she had said nothing all the way home. He wasn't sure how to handle her when she wouldn't even make small talk or smile. And she said hardly anything after -- they picked up Alexander, entertaining her with the latest installment of Alexander Rozhenko and the Other Kids at School, featuring the two flatulent boys at the back of the class. Clearly Alexander was reaching that magical phase where bodily functions were hilarious. It led to Jean-Luc intervening, with a paternal nudge to consider that crude humor didn't belong at the dinner table. They managed to finish dessert without further fart jokes.

Deanna went to sit on the sofa, in the center of the long crescent, when Beverly and Wes arrived. Wes departed soon after with Alexander as scheduled -- during the meetings, he usually took the boy to a local gym that had a springball court. Then everyone started to arrive. Mike, Leila, Geordi, Data, and then Elena. Beverly came to sit with Deanna and stared at her with great concern.

This was the first meeting in a month, and they'd all been busy. Everyone chatted about the latest happenings in their lives, until one by one they noticed Deanna and Beverly sitting there without a word. Jean-Luc came down from the door with the admiral and settled in the two chairs facing the couch.

"Deanna has something to tell us, I think," Jean-Luc said at last into the silence.

"Did something happen since this morning? I thought apprehending a Changeling was good news," Elena said. "You look very angry."

"What?" Mike blurted. 

The admiral glanced around as if suddenly remembering that Starfleet protocols had to apply, some of the time. "This morning in my office. And that is irrelevant to the matter we're here to discuss."

"I don't think so," Deanna said, and then she had everyone's rapt attention. "I went to see Kate Pulaski today."

"Why?" Jean-Luc asked. Beverly merely gave her an alarmed look. Kate was one of the names on the list that Tom Riker had given Deanna.

"Beverly told me she left the project she'd been on, three weeks ago, because Kate was coming around so often it alarmed her supervisor. I waited a while and went to see if I could get her to tell me why. I found out more than I bargained for -- nothing about Beverly, but she warned me that Will was no longer incarcerated. He wanted the deal because it would mean his conviction wouldn't be public knowledge, so the greater body of Starfleet officers wouldn't see him and question why he was at large in the Federation, instead of locked up. And the look on Mike's face would be why I didn't want to tell you, but I knew you would all need to know. He might try to approach me."

It took a bit for them to settle down. Waves of anger washed over her, and Jean-Luc looked as though he might want to go right out to find Will, right now. Elena, on the other hand, had a grim demeanor.

"You aren't surprised at all," Deanna said, looking across at the admiral.

"I can't say that I am. Sometimes things happen that have no rational explanation, regulations are broken without consequence, and when I question I am stared down without answers." Elena crossed her legs and heaved a great sigh. "What made you decide to sidestep when Leyton asked you how you detected the Changeling?"

"He's not being forthcoming -- there's something going on that he's hiding, with malice. He's angry about the Changeling infiltration but not entirely honest about his thoughts. What do you know about Torrance?"

"Admiral Torrance was promoted a few months ago -- I haven't had much contact with him," Elena said. "Why do you ask?"

"I think he may be someone we can recruit." Deanna glanced at Jean-Luc. "He wants to meet you."

"Whatever for?"

"Should we really trust Kate?" Beverly asked, not giving Deanna time to answer. Her concern about Pulaski was at an all-time high.

"You're right to question. But I put pressure on her -- she's conflicted, torn between self preservation and trying to break free of their control. She keeps warning me. She said she didn't tell Thomas to bring me that information, and yet Thomas was telling the truth -- he said she gave it to him and instructed him to warn me. For Thomas to believe that, there must have been either someone who appears to be Kate involved, or a Changeling has been involved. That implies that someone in Starfleet is not just manipulating the Maquis but attempting to control the coming war on a larger scale. But then that begs the question of why they would be so involved in deceiving me."

"You're Captain Picard's wife, after all," Elena said. "It's likely that they are predicting that his popularity and influence will lead to his becoming an asset of some kind. One of the choices I made very quickly was to not have obvious ties to anyone."

Deanna thought about mentioning that Kate hadn't known about the marriage, but supposed that was irrelevant; it was becoming clear that Kate didn't know everything. 

"Have there been other admirals you suspect as being part of the conspiracy?" Jean-Luc asked.

"Of course. Over the past three weeks I've spent having lunch in the commissary I've watched Jellico pretend he isn't staring at me and suspicious of my every move."

"That's because he knows you were the counselor aboard the _Enterprise_  and he finds you an unlikely choice for an adjutant," Elena said. "I teased him about his fears when he asked me about it. He can be an insufferable man, but I've never suspected anything more."

"I suspected there was something else going on when he was in command of the _Enterprise_. He and Will were practically at each other's throats. He's on guard constantly, but that means little at Command, most of them are. Delaney is of course trustworthy, so far as I can tell. Leyton is not. I don't believe he is part of the conspiracy but I think he has something else going on."

"Leyton firmly believes we aren't taking the Dominion seriously enough. I believe him, but adopting an alarmist stance without evidence isn't something I want to do. The Cardassians are up to something as well as the Romulans, and it appears the Breen are starting to show signs of movement. We have two fronts to this battle," Elena said. "I wish we didn't have to fight our own people in addition to the Dominion."

"It's frustrating that we have to be so careful in recruiting, but I don't think rushing things will be beneficial," Jean-Luc said. He frowned a little, showing some of his frustration, and turned to meet the admiral's gaze. "Deanna told me you want her to attend this reception tomorrow -- I agree that it would help her form opinions about more of the admirals at Command, but she already comes home tired. I think if we want her to do that we should let her rest tomorrow."

"That would be reasonable. You've looked tired, lately," Elena said, concerned.

"Oh, that's because I'm always tired whether I do anything or not."

 "I think you should tell us how it came about that you knew Kate was... one of them," Jean-Luc said, sounding quite calm and feeling quite insistent.

"Only if you don't yell at me," she replied. Geordi stifled a guffaw against the back of his hand.

"He might explode if he can't yell," Beverly cautioned, smiling cannily.

"I might yell if you don't stop teasing me," he shot back -- Deanna grinned fondly at him. At last, he wasn't turned to stone in the face of teasing. It probably helped that no one was on duty, but he'd made progress with this as well.

"When Kyle Riker came aboard. Kyle is one of the hardest, coldest people I've ever met. He can be charming enough to turn heads and make friends everywhere he goes, not unlike Will. Kate knew him well enough to spend quite a bit of time with him, and I questioned her about him. I can understand more than people want me to, and it concerned me enough that I was more inquisitive than usual with her, when I sensed more than the usual layers of emotions when she talked about him."

"Can I ask you to talk more about this? Because it strikes me that there's more to empathy than I thought there was, if you are able to make such judgments using it." Elena looked relaxed, as she usually did in these meetings -- she always came with her hair down around her shoulders and wearing a dress, as ordinary as any woman on the street.

"I'm kind of interested too," Geordi said. "You don't talk about that at all."

Deanna glanced around the room -- leave it to the admiral to make the request. Now all of them were curious. Most of them usually accepted what she said at face value. "I'm not sure I can explain it well enough."

"You can," Jean-Luc exclaimed. "You don't want to."

"I'm not just putting you off, there really aren't words.... It's easy for me to tell, if someone is conflicted about something. It's also obvious when the conflict is something brief, or something longstanding and ongoing. Like Kate feeling affection for Kyle, but frustrated and resenting that he gave her an assignment. Or fearing that he's there to give her one. He didn't, when he came aboard, but I knew that she was simultaneously afraid of him and glad to see him, and I knew that Kate under normal circumstances was not so divided and harbored no dualities. She came aboard much like the rest of the crew, happy to be there and wanting to do a good job."

"Aren't you taking a risk talking to her?"

Deanna turned to Beverly and took her hand, trying to reassure. "Of course. But she would be an excellent asset, if she could be convinced to give us more information. She did tell me it's unlikely they'll recruit me -- the implication was that if any of them harass me it will be Will. And she warned me about him."

"She cares about you," Jean-Luc surmised. "You were close while she was aboard. I still don't trust her."

"Of course you don't. I don't, really."

 "What will we do about Riker?" he exclaimed, making it clear he was more worried about that than the doctor.

"Nothing. He's not on Earth," Deanna said.

"You can say that so conclusively," Elena half-asked.

"If I know someone well, I can. I knew when Geordi went to the shipyards a couple of days ago. I can tell when Beverly is somewhere other than her apartment. I knew you were all right, in the office with the Changeling, because you never felt the level of anxiety that usually goes with an attack." Deanna turned to Jean-Luc, who again sat at her side. "Thomas is here somewhere, but not close. Perhaps Europe. Will is not here at all."

"But you'll say something the instant that changes?" Jean-Luc asked.

"I don't see how he would be able to do anything even if he was," Elena said. "This is one of the more secure apartment buildings. No one gets in without going through the lobby. And you can continue to be at Command -- Delaney is talking about going through the trouble to recruit more Betazoids to security."

"Thomas got into the hall outside the door without going through the lobby," Deanna told the admiral. "I asked -- no one saw him. Mr. Mann was very upset when he looked at the video records of the hall outside our door from that day. Jean-Luc isn't paranoid. But I'm not helpless, either. I fought him off last time."

Mike leaned forward. "You had the drop on him. He didn't expect it. You won't get that again. You told me before that when you're focused on something you can't necessarily sense everything -- you're not omniscient. He could still come up on you before you knew he was there. So I'm thinking shifts -- when I can't be there, Data will be."

"I agree," Data said.

"I can ask Delaney to assign someone to the door," Elena said. "In fact, we'll have more security throughout Command. It will be easy enough to circulate a specific warning not to allow anyone in or out without a retinal scan. We'll circulate his picture to all staff."

Deanna nodded, though she thought that was going to be an obvious thing to do, and Will would certainly expect it. She let them talk on, about how to manage security without being too much of an interruption of her life, until she couldn't stand it any more. She stood up and planted her hands on her hips, which really made the loosely-draped blouse conform to the bulge of her belly.

"No."

"Deanna," Jean-Luc protested at once.

"No, I'm not going to let you turn my life into a mobile prison -- I'll tell you when he shows up, but until he does, no. I'm really tired and I'm going to take a bath -- I'm sorry to be a negligent hostess," she exclaimed, starting to cry a little. She'd hit the end of her rope -- it had been a long, demanding day, and the hormones weren't helping.

Unfortunately Beverly heard the catch in her voice, and followed her. "Do you need anything?" she asked softly as they entered the bedroom.

"I'm really just tired. I just need rest." The tears in her voice were upsetting. She held up her hands, dismissing her friend's concern, and went toward the bathroom.

"Can I check you over?"

Deanna turned around to find Beverly had followed her, holding a tricorder in both hands. "I was at the clinic today -- they checked me over before I saw Kate. I'm fine."

"I'd like to check anyway, please?"

Sighing, Deanna went down the steps and sat heavily on the edge of the bed. Beverly hurried to sit next to her and ran the tricorder briefly. "You're right, everything seems fine. But you're showing elevated levels of -- okay, yes, you're pretty stressed out. Go to bed."

Deanna watched her leave; once the door closed behind her, Deanna went to the bathroom and got into a hot bath, complete with some lovely bath salts that smelled of citrus. She piled her hair into a loose knot on her head and soaked, half-floating, until the water felt tepid.

"They're all gone."

Jean-Luc's quiet statement woke her abruptly. Gripping the edges of the tub, she sat up and glanced over her shoulder. "I must have fallen asleep here."

He brought her a towel and wrapped it around her as she stood. It was welcome; the air felt chilly. "I sent Alexander downstairs to stay with the Crushers. I told him you were exhausted and needed to sleep in. He's probably going to be a little worried about you, but I promised I would make sure you were all right."

"Okay."

Jean-Luc brought her out into the bedroom, and then she noticed he was undressed, himself, and ready for bed. The walls and ceiling were opaque black again. He watched her get in and tugged the sheet and blanket up over her, and returned to the bathroom. When he came back and got in with her, he told the computer to turn out the lights. Then it was black as empty space. She reached for him, crawling into his arms, and couldn't suppress a shiver.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"I'm afraid," she whispered. "What if it isn't possible? What if there's nothing we can do? The last three weeks I've gained so little information -- my semi-educated hunches aren't enough to go on."

His answer was to put his strong arms around her, and pull loose the pins from her hair, and hold her while gently stroking it over her shoulder. She eventually was able to set aside the anxiety enough to relax and fall asleep again.

She woke slowly, to sunshine through the ceiling, and rolled on her back and stretched. She was alone -- but Jean-Luc was near, and coming back to her. She smiled as he came in with a cup of coffee and a plate, and sat on the edge of the bed to put breakfast on the night stand. "You slept in for nearly three hours. How do you feel?"

"I'm hungry, and the headache is gone. The baby is moving."

His hands went to the baby and pressed in on her belly gently. Jean-Luc felt the kind of wonder she'd seen him feel over interstellar phenomena and new life forms, while their son thumped against his palm. He looked up at her with a soft smile that she only recently had started to see. "Want something to eat?"

"I do."

He propped her up on pillows as if she were bedridden, and she gave him a bemused look. "Practice," he said, caressing her belly and leaning in to kiss her gently. He turned to get the plate of food.

"I'm not sick, Jean-Luc. I have a small child growing in my belly and I want to eat more than a bowl of yogurt."

"I'll bring you whatever you want."

That led to fruit, an egg sandwich, and then she moved on to a red curry with lamb. She grazed through it all and asked for ice cream.

 "This is one of those things no one bothered to warn me about," Jean-Luc said, piling dishes up. "Yesterday you had difficulty keeping anything down."

"I think there are plenty of surprises in store. Are you going to be there for the birth?"

He was stunned, so she knew he hadn't thought about it. He had been distracted -- living in the now with her and working with his brother on the house and the winery, while thinking about the anti-conspiracy conspiracy and the new ship.

"It's been a while, since we spent the day together," she said, and the tears started all over again. It didn't seem to matter what it was, if it generated emotion in her she would start to cry. "I almost wish we could just...."

He left the leaning tower of dishes to return and sit on the bed with her, and reach for her again. She leaned on his shoulder and hated crying.

"I'm not going to say I don't want you to help Robert, or do other things, I feel -- "

"I know," he whispered. "Have you changed your mind? Do you want me to come see you, during the day?"

"It's just the hormones, you know. I understand why you have to be elsewhere, without me."

"Do you still want to go to Risa?"

Deanna smiled. "I want to go away with you. If you'd like to go there, that will be fine. As long as we're together."

"We're going to be fine," he murmured, pulling his legs up on the bed and letting her drape herself over him. "It's all going to work out. You'll see."

It was easier, with him holding her this way. Easier to feel safe, and to feel that she wasn't alone. Somehow despite having the intense connection with him, she would feel so isolated sitting at the desk in the front office at Command.

"I should come be with you for the rest of the week. It's easier for you, isn't it?"

"I'm not sure the admiral will appreciate that."

"We'll figure something out." Jean-Luc shifted slightly to get his fingers on the edge of the blanket, and tucked it in over her naked body, settling back against the headboard to let her rest in his arms. "Better?"

"Until I have to get up again."

Deanna closed her eyes and thought for a while about the situation they were in, and he eventually took notice. But he said nothing, merely projected his confidence -- what he was famous for, that optimism that things would resolve if they only held to their principles and pursued the truth, and she let him do that. She had learned, after all, that even when she felt all was lost, he could pull them out of the problem situation and find solutions. It was why she'd told him as much as she had about the people she knew to be part of the conspiracy.

"Thank you," she murmured, starting to hope again.

 

 


	53. Happy Anniversary, Mom

"I look pregnant," she complained, blowing one of the intentionally-loose curls out of her face as she let Jean-Luc lead her into the large event center.

"I look bald," he commented. Someone snorted at it -- the foyer was congested with flag officers in uniform and their significant others, variably dressed in civilian formal wear, and the closer they came to the broad open doors ahead, the slower everyone was walking.

Deanna had opted for layers of warm red fabric draped over her body, over a golden shimmering sheath that flowed to her ankles. It made her belly less pronounced than it was and went with a full inverse Picard, so she could wear tall gold combs that concealed a camera. As they reached the door, Mike, in his role as temporarily-working-events-at-Command security officer, ran the security sweep and nodded them through. Elena had already informed Admiral Delaney that some unobtrusive recording would be taking place.

"I would like a drink," Deanna announced imperiously.

"This way," he said calmly. Playing the straight man would be easy, for him. They went toward the bar along with most of those entering the event hall. The immense room was well lit and decorated everywhere with greenery -- it was obvious that the Korgans appreciated such decor, as there were several tall, red-skinned aliens near one of the potted flowering trees, admiring it and sniffing the flowers with great flapping nostrils that were draped down their cheeks.

"My feet hurt," she complained quietly, shifting her weight back and forth from foot to foot. Jean-Luc's only response was a quiet sigh and completely-suppressed amusement. He knew she wasn't really hurting, in the low-heeled sandals. Just as he knew she was feigning the peevishness. Being pregnant and moody would be her way of distracting others, if needed. An essential part of undercover operations.

Before they reached the bar along the right side of the room, someone stopped them to greet Jean-Luc -- it showed her exactly why he had dodged the admiralty ball every year, if at all possible, as each admiral did the verbal equivalent of a swagger. Deanna wondered if they weren't jealous, as some of them were younger than Jean-Luc despite having been promoted. They asked questions about the things everyone wanted to ask, which were the things Jean-Luc least wanted to discuss. Cardassians, Ferengi, Q, the Borg. Deanna didn't find anything about any of them that made her question their loyalties further.

"Captain Picard," came the next admiral, just when Deanna thought they'd reached freedom and drinks. Before she could swear, she smiled, turning from the last few steps to the bar to face the woman with Jean-Luc.

She was a tall brunette, with dark coffee-colored eyes and an elaborate hairstyle with curls gathered on the back of her head, wearing the bars of a vice admiral and a contagious smile. She's beautiful, Deanna thought, and it was Jean-Luc's thought as well -- she sensed his subdued physical response to the woman simultaneously, with a slight flinch all her own. She covered the flinch by raising her hand to her side, running her fingers along the swell of her belly.

"Admiral," Jean-Luc responded, no more and no less polite than usual. "I don't believe you've met my wife, Commander Deanna Troi? Deanna, this is Admiral Mira -- she's part of Starfleet Tactical Operations."

Mira had a great polished polite smile, but there was a brief moment of chagrin before she responded. "Of course -- a pleasure to meet you, Commander. I've been trying to convince your husband to join us, in Tactical, he would be an asset to our department."

"The captain would be an asset to any department," Deanna said. "But I know how much he misses space."

He turned from the admiral and gave Deanna a look that, in his usual understated way, begged for mercy. Deanna responded with a warm smile, smoothing over and promising not to over-share with an admiral. Meanwhile, Mira responded.

"We all do, when we've lost a ship. I've been a flag officer for a year and still miss it. I look forward to my visits to Deep Space 9." Mira lost some of her smile. "You know, I'm not sure yet how it will take shape, but... I believe we're close to having defenses in place. I understand we have you to thank for locating and defeating the first Changeling known to be here on Earth, Commander?"

"That's what I am told," Deanna said noncommittally. "I'm told as well that they are working on other means of detecting them."

"Yes. Using thermodynamics as I understand -- the structure of the Changeling is so different than that of a humanoid that we think we can detect them based on heat signature patterns, using a tricorder."

"Until they understand that, and learn to mimic the heat signature of a human," Deanna said.

Mira stared at her with the expression of someone who was trying very hard not to let her feelings show -- unfortunately, Deanna could tell suspicion and a little fear, and some healthy skepticism, were behind that impassive wall. Deanna smiled again at that.

"Admiral, I'm only making the observation because I know first-hand what a Changeling is. I think part of the reason they have been so mysterious, putting forth the Jem'hadar and the Vorta instead, is to have the advantage -- they're losing that slowly but surely. We're slowly piercing the veil, in part thanks to the security chief on DS9."

"Probably not a good topic here," Jean-Luc murmured, as he watched Admiral Jellico and two other human male admirals stroll by, laughing loudly, drinks in hand.

"Probably not. There are no Changelings, but there may be others," Deanna said, letting her eyes scan the room again. There appeared to be about a hundred people present so far -- not as many as there would be, perhaps, but a fairly easy number for her to scan without difficulty. She sensed them all as people, at least.

"You can tell so easily," Mira exclaimed. The suspicion remained; Deanna couldn't make up her mind about Mira. But she didn't have to -- there would be more private meetings later, with people she was doubtful about.

"Yes. But enough of that -- I'm thirsty," Jean-Luc said.

Mira smiled, nodded and headed off in a new direction. Deanna let Jean-Luc guide her to the bar. At least the long delay meant they reached the bartender after the initial rush and the crowding.

"Good evening," came the familiar voice of Admiral Torrance. Deanna turned a subdued smile on him and introduced Jean-Luc. The bartender quietly set down a wine glass and a tumbler full of fruit juice, as Jean-Luc had requested, and as the two men made the usual initial remarks, he gave her the tumbler and picked up his wine. The conversation, as they wandered away from the bar and found an open space near a buffet table, segued to past diplomatic endeavors. Deanna commented here and there but kept her attention on scanning the room, which was still filling with people.

There was a moment as Torrance finally noticed her pregnancy, as she let her arm wrap around her belly, bringing his attention to the movement -- his eyes slid up to meet hers. "Congratulations," he said quietly.

"Thank you," she said with a smile. She turned to Jean-Luc, who had a hand in the small of her back and stood closer than she would have expected, but he was feeling protective. "He thinks you're an idealist, by the way."

Torrance went rigid, but Jean-Luc's canny smile reassured him. Jean-Luc took a sip of his wine and glanced around them, and said, "Do you think I'm an idealist?"

"You have a fine grasp of reality and a stubborn habit of refusing to give up on impossible tasks you believe must be carried out. I suspect that may be why you married me."

Torrance laughed with Jean-Luc. He commented, but Deanna turned her focus to her reason for being there, as she sensed the approach of someone interested in her, and then a tall man arrived on her right. She looked up at him, and Jean-Luc faltered in his response to Torrance's question of whether he would be taking a promotion soon.

"Come with me," the dark-haired stranger said softly.

Deanna looked up at his face, aiming the camera in her hair at him, and smiled pleasantly. "Fuck off."

The man glared at her for daring to refuse, and then Mike was there -- Data had been paying attention, from the secure location in a bare little room in a building just a few miles away, and contacted their security officer at once via the implant Beverly had placed in his auditory canal. "Come with me," Mike said sternly.

"What was that?" Torrance said. He didn't appear alarmed, but he felt a dread that Deanna thought probably meant he was more aware of the clandestine doings of others at Command than she'd previously guessed. Mike had the man by the arm and was escorting him calmly toward the entrance.

"An attempt to take me out of the room. Betazoids make people nervous. Someone is aware that I'm an empath."

"You are?" Torrance asked. "Why would that make you someone that should be removed from a diplomatic reception?"

Deanna glanced around -- they were being ignored by the people within earshot. Like so many functions people were getting very happy with drink and involving themselves in conversations. "Something is supposed to happen, apparently," she murmured, giving Jean-Luc a happy smile to cover it. "There's someone watching us now that we repelled the one who was supposed to remove me. I don't recognize him."

"Something will happen that an empath can detect? Is the fleet admiral here yet?"

Torrance wasn't slow on the uptake. His lips thinned, briefly, and he glanced around very carefully. "So you're not just here for the reception. Can I help?"

"I'm not sure that you can. The fleet admiral is on her way. She's angry." Deanna spent another moment scanning. Her hand clenched around Jean-Luc's arm. "He's here."

"He?" Torrance echoed. Jean-Luc's anxiety skyrocketed, and he leaned, but stopped short of pushing her off.

"Why the hell would Will Riker be interested in this event?" Jean-Luc muttered.

"He wouldn't, his 'employer' might be." Deanna looked around and saw that Mike had rallied security, that officers were quietly skirting the room and Mike himself stood among milling guests with Delaney. "Security is getting busy."

"There must be a target, somewhere. Someone?"

Deanna raised her head and looked at the entrance, where Nechayev made her appearance in dress whites and carrying herself with the stiffness she was famous for. Elena met her gaze -- Deanna's expression must have carried the message well, the admiral glanced around the room anxiously and noted the increasing presence of security officers. Elena veered left, toward Delaney. Deanna sensed the surge of intent -- it was a different kind of anxiety, one with focus and purpose, and she had over time sensed it on several occasions when someone meant someone else harm. She scanned the faces around the fleet admiral and saw the assailant at last -- she had a relatively clear view of him, as most people attending had collected around the perimeter of the room in small groups. Slipping her hand under one of the wraps of her outfit, she flipped the hem aside to aim the phaser she'd hidden there and stunned the man. She tucked hand and phaser back in the wrap in an instant -- Jean-Luc froze in place with a wide-eyed stare at her, as if she'd just goosed the president of the Federation and couldn't figure out what to say about that. He'd known she had the phaser, had one himself in fact. But he hadn't expected that.

Pandemonium. Admirals and diplomats and aliens alike panicked and started to pour toward the entrance in droves, talking in high-pitched frightened tones that suggested there might be a problem containing them all. Deanna grabbed Jean-Luc's hand and dragged him a few steps toward Elena; he got the idea and by the time they reached her, there was a ring of security officers around her.

"Did you see who stunned this man?" Delaney exclaimed, his gaze bouncing from Deanna to Jean-Luc to Admiral Torrance, who'd come along as if drawn by a tractor beam.

"I did," Deanna said. "He was lunging at the fleet admiral. There wasn't any time to alert anyone."

Delaney sidestepped to the heap in civilian formal wear and shoved the shoulder with the toe of his boot. An instrument clattered to the tile from the unconscious man's fingers. Elena stared at him, and then at Deanna.

"I'm not sure what he was trying to do, but he intended harm," Deanna said. "He was trying to get to the admiral."

Delaney gaped, and he wasn't the only one. Jean-Luc broke the ice. "We should get him in a cell, in custody," he suggested calmly.

Admiral Delaney gave the order, and two of his officers hauled the man to his feet. Before anyone could react, Deanna darted toward the would-be assailant and demanded, "Why were you trying to hurt the fleet admiral?"

He was pretending to be out, he was groggy but aware, and yet he dangled from the hands of the two officers as if he were out cold. But she sensed the reaction well enough. She went to Jean-Luc and took his arm again, focusing on him instead of letting her anxiety send her attention after Will, who was close but not immediately apparent.

"Do we need to stay?" he asked, appealing to the admirals as security dragged the man, still pretending to be stunned, toward the exit. Elena softened at once, from self-righteous rage that followed the shocked anger, to sympathy. She was too aware of the remaining four security officers hovering stiffly around her to completely soften, however.

"Thank you, Commander, for your intervention," Elena said.

"We need a statement from you." Delaney had questions in his eyes -- he had been made aware of the conspiracy they were battling, and that they would be carrying their own weapons, but Will was a separate discussion and they hadn't enlightened him yet. "But that can be obtained tomorrow."

"Let's go," Jean-Luc said. "Good night, Admiral Torrance."

"If there's anything I can do," Torrance said, uncertain.

"There is. But we can discuss it later." Deanna gave him a wavering smile and turned to walk with Jean-Luc toward the entrance.

He waited the entire walk to the transporter room, then to the apartment after they materialized in the lobby. Wes stood up from the couch as they came in the front door. "You're home early," he exclaimed. "Alexander just went to bed."

"Yes, there was a security issue that shut it down early," Jean-Luc said. "Thanks for staying, Wes."

"No problem. See you later." Wes took his padd and headed out the door. "Good night."

In their bedroom, Deanna started with her hair -- as the curls tumbled down, she brought the camera down and shut it off, placing it on the night table on her side of the bed. Then she started to unwind the long swath of fabric, dropping the phaser next to the camera.

"Deanna," he said softly.

"Will is on Earth but he isn't close. I'm sorry I startled you. But if I had delayed that man could have killed her."

He closed his mouth again, and stared down at the floor for a bit. She went to him, still wearing the golden gown, and put her arms around his neck.

"Can I have a back rub?"

"Yes," he said immediately. Then it shook him out of it. "Deanna, it's a little disconcerting... have you told us everything?"

"There are a few things, but tomorrow is soon enough, isn't it?"

He gave her a look, but turned without a word to take off his uniform. By the time he came to bed, he had set it all aside, the doubt and the questions, and let her settle against him. She rolled and kissed his cheek, and put her head on his chest.

"I'm sorry," she murmured against his shoulder.

"My life has been complicated by Starfleet for decades -- we'll get through this, just as I've gotten through everything else. Get some sleep."

Deanna checked on Alexander -- he was asleep -- and reached out to each of their friends, one by one, to find that most of them were either asleep or almost so. She knew that Will was now angry and definitely not asleep. Before, she might have allowed herself to lay there letting that influence her feelings, but she turned her attention to her husband instead. Jean-Luc appeared to be quite aware of her wandering and when she came back to him he smiled, let his hand rest on her hip, and relaxed with her.

She awakened as usual a few hours after falling asleep, to empty her bladder. The quiet of the night appealed to her. She sat on the edge of the bed and put her hands on her bare belly, and looked up at the stars visible through the ceiling. The moon was half full, so there weren't as many as usual. She knew when Jean-Luc woke up, and smiled when he started to feel desire.

"I love your pajamas," he said.

She started to giggle. "You've always loved my pajamas."

"Also your vacation wardrobe."

Deanna got up on the bed, walking around on it with springing steps until she stood over him. He lay poised as if to move in any direction he needed to, for whatever she might do next, but she dropped to her knees with a bounce. He came up to balance on his own knees in front of her.

"You have nice pajamas as well," she commented, running her hand up his thigh.

He placed his hands on either side of her stomach. "What would be comfortable?"

"My back isn't hurting tonight. Come here." She fell on her back, reaching out to him. He took her hand as he came down to kiss her.

The larger the baby grew, the less exuberant and more gentle he became; he was happy to do whatever she wanted, but hesitant and stopping short of more athletic sexual activity. Still, he could make her come with little effort, and keep her floating on warmth and joy for a long while afterward. She didn't have to put forth any effort to keep them connected any more.

When they finally got up in the morning, she noticed more of an echo from him than usual. While he showered, she threw on her sweats and went out to get a snack and a water bottle for their run. Alexander was already up, standing near the door wearing his gray sweats and ready to go, and grinned at her. "Good morning, _tigryonak._ You aren't going to school today."

That confused him. "Why?"

"I know you remember what day it is. I wanted to spend it with you. The captain and I have a meeting this morning, with some admirals, but the rest of the day we'll do something else, something fun."

Alexander looked at the floor. "You mean it's the day Father died."

"After our run we'll talk about what we want to do this afternoon."

Alexander leaped at her and gave her a hug. Jean-Luc arrived, also in gray sweats, and their foster child jumped to hug him as well. "Thank you," Alexander cried.

"You're welcome?" Jean-Luc responded, returning the embrace but anxious.

Alexander fell back and gave his stepfather a sad smile. "I know you don't like kids. You didn't send me away, you could have."

Jean-Luc gaped at Deanna, plunged into a dismayed speechless state by this.

"Alexander," Deanna said softly, trying to get his attention. She took the few steps to him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"I know my father was your friend, and you're taking care of me because of it."

"I -- " Jean-Luc froze in place and hit another wall. He was afraid of saying the wrong thing, and overwhelmed with frustrated embarrassment. Deanna met his eyes and hoped he wasn't too flooded with his own emotions to think about this with that rational part of him that had helped him through so much. She tried to project calm, and faith that he would be able to give Alexander what he needed.

Alexander turned toward the door. Deanna held on to his shoulder; he turned to her, curious as to why they weren't going running. He was so in tune with so many things, and yet proving he was still a child, with his childish interpretation of things. "I think its important for you to understand something, Alexander. You're right in a way, but you're wrong."

"How can something be wrong and right at the same time?"

"Because it's not that simple," Jean-Luc put in. He hesitantly put a hand on Alexander's other shoulder, and started to find his way. "Worf was a very good friend, and I would have spent time with you for that reason, regardless. But...." Jean-Luc ran his other hand over his head, a sign of the continuing internal struggle for words. "The thing about relationships is that all of them change, Alexander. Sometimes we grow apart, sometimes we grow together. And I think if you remember a year ago, how it was, and think about the way things are now, you can see how our relationship has changed. It's not about your father any more. It was perhaps a little about Deanna... I knew she wasn't going to abandon you for anyone, and I knew you needed her, and so it was never even a question of sending you away -- I knew that I had to accept you. And now, if anything happened to her, I think you have to understand that I would never let anything happen to you, that you would always have a home with me if you wanted it."

Alexander stared at him and tried to put it all together. "Okay."

Deanna sighed, and tightened her fingers on that muscular Klingon shoulder. "What do you think he's saying?" she prompted quietly, for both their sakes.

"I think he's saying things changed, and so...."

"I'm saying that I think of you as a son."

Deanna stared at him, cocking her head in disbelief, even as Alexander did with a different kind of disbelief. And he lunged away from her, clutching Jean-Luc tightly about the rib cage -- she came forward to break it up, before Alexander accidentally broke something. "Let's go, already," she said, nudging him toward the door.

It was easy enough to distract Alexander away from further discussion of the matter -- like his father, he was more about action than discussion, though she hoped to help him develop a better balance of thought and action than Worf had demonstrated. Worf had learned a lot since he'd come aboard, in no small part due to their captain. Alexander started to excitedly ask about what they would be doing, despite her intent to discuss it over breakfast when they came back from their run, and Jean-Luc was actually relieved to move away from the less comfortable topic of how he felt about his stepson.

Once outside on the walk in front of their building, the run started -- as usual, Alexander ran ahead, sticking within view but a few paces distant until they reached the park, where he left the path and started to work his way through the obstacle course that ran parallel to it. Sometimes, she raced Jean-Luc along a straight stretch through the trees; sometimes, as they did today, they slowed to a walk. It was a mutual decision, she thought, sensing the internal debate he was having and the accompanying blend of emotions that usually preceded a desire to talk about it.

"I know what you're going to say," he said.

She raised both eyebrows at him, coming to a stop in front of a drinking fountain.

"Okay, I don't. But what happened with Alexander, I want to have the ability to express myself in terms he understands. I want to do better with children."

"You mean you want to be able to tell him that you love him?"

That only led to a scowl and crossed arms. He started to walk again, so she went with him.

"You don't remember being a child who needed to hear things stated in such straightforward terms. Children don't read between the lines. Not until they are old enough to be able to recognize subtler messages. They especially don't know how to articulate their feelings until they have a sense of being safe and heard -- I know many families aren't able to provide that kind of environment. Sometimes, children learn early that feelings aren't safe to express, or even to feel."

"You're going to remind me that my family was one of the difficult kind," he said, glancing up the hill. Alexander was swinging through the hanging rings, and there were two more obstacles before the course came back down to the trail.

"And that Robert has changed a lot, from the man you described to me," she said. "And you've changed -- I think just eight months ago that you would have relied on me to help you through that short exchange this morning. I suspect that the rest of the journey you're on will be with your son." Deanna put her hand on her belly, less obvious beneath the bulky sweatshirt she still had to wear against the chill of early morning.

Already, he had moved on from the rigid defensiveness at the mention of his son -- already he turned to her, just at the reminder that he was a husband and father, and neither role required the stiff distance and defended aloofness of Captain Picard. "It's hard to believe it's been less than a year, since we've been together. That we were so far apart -- that I was so uncomfortable with him."

They reached the end of the obstacle course as Alexander ran down the hill to them, leaping over the five hurdles that constituted the last obstacle and coming to a stop in the trail in front of them, and she smiled at him -- all this comparison between now and then had her thinking about the little boy she'd walked to sickbay to see his father's body, and now he stood a foot taller and more than a little broader in the shoulder, smiled often, had good grades, had good friends, hadn't had a meltdown in at least three months and the last few had been minor, barely exceeding a tantrum in severity. Deanna put an arm over his shoulders and walked on, making mental notes as she tallied up everything that had changed.

"I think we should go sailing," she said. As she predicted, Alexander beamed and almost bounced off the ground. He hadn't gotten her on a sailboat -- the replica of a warship for the wedding didn't count, he claimed, because they hadn't actually worked on sailing it themselves. Jean-Luc had taken Alexander out several times on a sailboat that belonged to Captain Holloway -- it was in a slip in the public harbor at Sausalito.

"Can we?" Alexander cried, appealing to Jean-Luc.

"I'm not sure we'll ever get her to make the offer twice, so we should take her up on it," Jean-Luc said. "But we're supposed to -- "

"I know, you have a meeting. That's okay, I have homework, and we can leave after you're done. When are you going to finish your project?"

They rounded the corner at the far end of the park, and walked down the city block past houses. "Project?" Deanna echoed.

"The one you have the meetings about. The secret one."

"Is that what Wes told you?" She glanced at Jean-Luc; he was startled by it.

"No, I figured it must be a secret project -- you always tell me when you're going out together, or if it's getting together with friends, or something like that."

"Well, we weren't going to tell you until we knew exactly what we were doing. But it's just meeting with other officers -- trying to figure out what we're going to do with the future, whether that will mean a ship or positions here on Earth, or some other planet."

"Can we stay where we are? I really like it here," he exclaimed, skipping a few steps and grabbing her hand. "I really like my school."

Jean-Luc exchanged a sober look with her, and glanced down at Alexander with a smile. "You'll know when we know, all right?"

"What kind of workout is this?" Deanna chided, starting to run as they turned right at another corner. They ran with her back to their building, four more blocks, and returned to their apartment. Deanna followed Jean-Luc into their bedroom and stopped as the door closed behind them.

"Something wrong?" he asked, peeling off his shirt.

"Will is still in the city somewhere. We were closer to him, as we reached the far end of the park. I think we need to change our routine."

Jean-Luc whirled to stare at her, alarmed. "The end of the park, near Nechayev's house?"

"Elena is already at Command. She'll be here with the others in two hours." Deanna tossed her sweatshirt on the floor, and reached back to unhook her bra. "He's not moved, and he's still being pensive and broody. I don't think he even knew we were there. I'm going to suggest to Elena that she move for a while, temporarily, to see if he changes location."

"Maybe Beverly needs a renter," he said, heading for the bathroom.

"You really must get over this urge to tease Beverly. I'm beginning to suspect you're out for vengeance for something. Unless this is something to get back at Elena?"

He said nothing more, just got in the shower, feeling mischievous and hiding a grin. She finished peeling off clothes and pulled the band from her hair, shaking out the long pony tail. When he was getting out, she headed in, dodging his hand. "We have two hours, you said," he complained.

"I'm hungry, and so is Alexander."

She took longer, because of her hair, and he came back in wearing pants and a burgundy sweater that she'd expressed approval for, the last time he'd worn it. As she stepped out of the shower, he held up one of their huge bath towels. "I think you've done a wonderful job with Alexander," he said as he wrapped her up in the towel and hugged her.

"Thanks to you," she said. "You've been there all along, you know. It's been so good for him to have you with us. It wasn't just me."

"You taught me how to help you."

"I didn't teach you to care," she whispered. "You did that all on your own. It was something I couldn't give him -- a father figure who genuinely cared enough to learn how to love him."

"Get dressed, already, I'm hungry too," he grumbled. More embarrassment. But, not as much as there would have been, just last year.

She pulled away, taking the towel with her, and went to obey, starting to dry her hair.

Breakfast with Alexander didn't usually take too long -- he ate twice as much as either of them, but twice as fast. They recycled the dishes and Alexander raced off to his room, promising not to come out until they came to get him. That gave them a short period of just the two of them, and so they settled on the balcony in the deck chairs with another cup of coffee apiece, and Deanna smiled at him, looking casual and happy in the spring morning air.

"It's all your fault," he complained, in that way that said he was teasing -- his straight face usually included a slight quirk of the corner of his mouth.

"I'm sure something is."

"You forced me into domesticity."

"I seem to recall your wishing that things between us could take a normal path, and lamenting that it wouldn't happen. Normal relationships become domestic -- household chores and concerns become a shared responsibility. And you wanted children, and there's nothing quite as domestic as family building, is there?"

"There you go again, blaming me."

"That too is rather domestic. Couples blame each other for things all the time." She reached her leg across the gap between their chairs and kicked his calf lightly with her bare foot. She'd opted for a loose house dress, in a burgundy that almost matched his sweater. "You decided you wanted a different counselor. You decided you wanted me in a more intimate capacity, and you couldn't keep your hands off me, and once I informed you I was receptive to whatever you wanted, you took it. And I'm quite content with the end result, thank you."

"I can't say that I have anything to complain about," he said, losing the mischief. "I suppose, now that Alexander started us down memory lane, that I'm reviewing the past months and I have to admit that I'm actually happy, unless I let myself drift off to thinking about Starfleet. And while it would be easy to tease you and blame you for that... I actually feel nothing but appreciation, and awe, that it wasn't so difficult as I thought it would be."

"You thought being with me would be -- "

"No," he exclaimed. "No. I thought I would have more of a struggle with Alexander. I thought -- you thought, too, that I would feel crowded, or that I would want to spend time apart sometimes. You told me to talk to you if I did. But I would be in the ready room, during the day, and as time went on I would find myself thinking about you, even missing you. I would worry about Alexander. When you went on that mission it was...."

"I don't want to do that again."

Jean-Luc shook his head, and oh-so-deliberately set aside the remembered dread and fear. "Alexander is happy here. You've been mostly happy, as I have. The baby -- we're having a baby," he said, and she could tell it was sinking in all over again. "I haven't told you, Deanna... the housewarming this weekend, when we go to France, one of the things Robert wanted to do -- we built a house. When the half of the vineyard that burned in the fire was cleaned up, he had them build a house for us. I kept telling him we might go back to space, that we would be fine here if we didn't, but he would tell me it was for whenever we decided to come home, and he would give me this look, as if he knew something I didn't."

"What a wonderful surprise. He does know what it's like to be a parent," she said. "But so do you. Don't you?"

"I have memories influenced by a probe. But Deanna, the Ressikans didn't give me enough. They didn't prepare me for the day to day, things like school meetings or... I keep thinking I must have changed a diaper but I can't find a single memory of that. I can't remember what it was like when Eline was pregnant. I can't remember her having aches and pains, losing her appetite. Being grumpy."

"So it was like a book or a play. All the tedious parts that don't serve the plot were left out."

"So if this were just a dream, or a holodeck program, or something similar to Kataan -- I wouldn't remember walking to school with Alexander every day. I wouldn't remember bringing you breakfast, or helping you clean up after you got sick, or letting my arm go numb instead of waking you up when you fall asleep on the couch while we're reading. I'd miss so many things...."

"You would miss all the things that make up a life, with someone."

"All the little things that make it worthwhile."

The chime, which they had programmed the computer to use instead of announcing people verbally, told them they had guests. But he sat a moment longer staring at her, as if he'd just figured out the biggest puzzle of his life.

"I told you so," Deanna said with a grin.

He returned the grin. "And I shan't doubt you again. Time for the meeting."

"Most of them are here and Geordi is almost in the building -- we'll have everyone by the time we get everyone coffee."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to put the meeting in this chapter, but I believe it will be better on its own.


	54. The Anti-Conspiracy Conspiracy

"Here you are," Deanna said, placing the mug in front of Delaney on the coffee table. He was out of uniform -- Elena must have informed him of the dress code. He'd come in feeling awkward, having arrived early and claiming he had decided to be early rather than late if he couldn't find the address. She wouldn't have pegged the admiral for generalized anxiety, but supposed being out of his element might be a factor.

"So this anti-conspiracy conspiracy you're running, how long have you been actively fighting these shadowy people behind the scenes?" Delaney asked.

Jean-Luc came down to settle on the end of the couch, facing the admiral in his chair. "That depends on how you define it. I've heard about conspiracies since I started at the Academy. I never gave it much thought, since there's never any proof, but some years ago friends of mine alerted me to strange occurrences -- dubious decision-making and changes in staffing, nothing conclusive. But it turned out to be an alien invasion. This current situation is difficult to deny, given what I've seen and heard -- my former first officer should be in prison, at the moment, and yet when I made inquiries I see that he is not, and there are no records that he ever was, nor are their records of the court-martial that I and several others discussed at length with a representative of the JAG on a starbase. And now that representative is on a leave of absence, and unreachable. And last night, we saw a man attempt to lead Deanna out of the room, and another attempt to reach the fleet admiral -- the assumption that I come to is that they were making an attempt on Nechayev's life."

"That would normally be the case, however, the instrument the man was carrying appeared to be a modified hypo. There was no payload -- no vial of any substance, just a plunger-type injection system that appeared to be designed to deliver a projectile." Delaney crossed his legs, sipped his coffee, and glanced at Deanna, who had taken a seat next to her husband and folded her hands in her lap. 

"Did you consider the idea that the payload might have been delivered?" Deanna asked.

"The admiral said he didn't touch her."

The chime signaled another arrival, and Deanna went to let in Beverly, Mike, Leila and Data. "You are all right?" Data asked. Deanna smiled and nodded as she gave him a hug.

"What happened?" Beverly exclaimed. "They were saying in the lift that you shot someone?"

"Why don't you get something to drink and have a seat? We'll go through it all when everyone is here. I'm fine, Data, thank you. The camera worked perfectly."

She let in Elena next, closely followed by Geordi, and when she returned to sit with Jean-Luc no sooner did she sit down than Beverly scooted closer, closing the small gap between them, and ran her medical tricorder over the baby. "He's fine," Deanna said. "Turn that way, scan her arm for any break in the skin."

Beverly gave her a dubious look, but she did so, and Elena had a serious expression as she held out her left arm. Then the doctor started to prod with her fingers. "Did you have a medical procedure done recently?"

"No. What are you doing?"

"There's something under the skin, here."

"Take it out," Elena snapped. Then sighed. "Please."

"How did you know?" Delaney asked, staring at Deanna.

Deanna watched Beverly easily push the capsule from the skin on the admiral's arm, probably through the unhealed, bloodless incision the device had made. "Break it."

"What is it?" Beverly asked, as she crushed it in her fingers.

"A tracking device. You need to avoid your house for a while, Elena," Deanna said. "Will Riker is staked out in your neighborhood. If it's not you he is watching, he should move on shortly. We should probably start to make a better effort to conceal your coming and going, from Command and from here."

Elena, and everyone else in the room, stared at her with varying levels of horror. Mike made a frustrated noise. "What the hell? You said he wasn't even on the planet."

"He arrived last night. I think at Command. The two men you apprehended at the reception, where are they?"

Mike turned to Delaney, who said, "They are in lockup at Command, of course. They're being questioned. You asked one of them a question, last night."

"He was coming out of it -- it was a very low stun setting. He wasn't intending to hurt the admiral. I think they wanted two things. They wanted to track her movements, because they suspect something. And they wanted to test us."

Several people, especially Elena, leaned forward, alarmed.

"They aren't aware we exist as a cohesive group, yet. But I'm sure they suspect something of the admiral, as her movements are no doubt under constant scrutiny, and it isn't the first time people have tried to root them out and demolish the organized effort to skirt the law."

"How do you know that?" Beverly asked softly, in a solemn way that suggested she was thinking she knew how, or at least suspected.

"I think you need to answer," Jean-Luc said after Deanna didn't respond immediately. "I think you know much more than you have told us, and it's time to tell us."

"Please," Elena said softly.

It was, Deanna supposed, as it should be. They did have a right to know.

"Because my mother told me. She's been involved in the government on Betazed for most of her life, and one of the things she learned early -- they used to attempt to recruit telepaths, on Betazed. They don't any longer. It's a dangerous double-edged sword, to have a telepath as a tool, as they tend to turn on you if they sense you intend for them to die on a mission. And they quickly found that Betazoids aren't motivated by the same things, and very few of us set aside the fairly-rigid telepath's code of ethics we share, mostly out of self preservation. You'd have similar issues attempting to recruit Vulcans for assassination attempts. Mother attempted to address it when she ran across it, and so my father died."

"They killed him to punish her," Elena exclaimed, with a burning hatred that had simmered for months beneath everything else Deanna had sensed.

"Because she fell into the trap of compromising ethics and she is a strong telepath, and when she made the attempt to identify and expose, they wanted to disable her but leave her in reserve -- that's my guess, as they didn't just kill her. And they approached her again some years later, but by then she had adopted her current mode of operation, complete irrelevancy and the general appearance of having no intelligence at all and caring only for clothing and having fun." Deanna sighed, thinking about how shocked she'd been, finding Mother's actual credentials as a teenager. "Mother appealed to her uncle, who was also influential and well-connected in the technological community, and redesigned herself. It was at one time possible to find out, through a routine inquiry of the computer network on Betazed, that she has two degrees and participated in projects designing computer software. You're not going to get that information any more. Diplomacy has the advantage of being something one needs no technical skill to do, and so she can avoid the appearance of being an asset for a clandestine mission. Her ongoing babbling and pretense of reading people's minds and announcing their thoughts make her very unappealing to them."

"How did they not know, when they approached her again, about her credentials? Why would they be unable to find them? Surely they knew about them before," Jean-Luc exclaimed. It surprised Deanna that he wasn't more shocked -- everyone else in the room was. Even Data was showing signs of being startled; he was staring at her with a hint of a smile, showing some of the emotion he'd always claimed he was incapable of.

"Because they don't keep records. To survive in the Federation without coming to the attention of Starfleet, these conspiracies -- I think there are multiple groups, actually, or perhaps the larger group is similar to the loose organization of the Maquis, with many cells and limited knowledge of each other -- must keep their organization out of the computer network, off the grid. I think they have advanced transporter technology. Mother told me what she knows, telepathically -- she never speaks openly about any of this. She didn't want to tell me anything, didn't want me to do this, and it took a lot of arguing to convince her that we stood a better chance than she did, at success. When she told me about her encounters with conspirators, it was clear that either their life spans are short or they aren't regional -- I had never met any of them and I couldn't find anything in Starfleet records about them. It may be that they move around more often than most people as a way of avoiding detection."

"Off the grid as you're doing, you mean," Delaney exclaimed. He didn't like any of this -- he was scowling. "You're using their methods to fight them."

"Yes and no. We explained to you how they likely discovered my relationship with Jean-Luc. Starfleet's computers are one of their tools," Deanna said.

"Then this is impossible," Data said.

Everyone turned to look at him. Most of them tacitly agreed. It did sound nearly as impossible as it would to expect a dozen people to track down the Maquis, or resolve the Dominion War. Elena fumed and stared at the hardwood floor.

"It is impossible to find them one by one and convict them of treason, perhaps," Deanna said. "But we may be using the wrong approach. Perhaps we shouldn't think of the individuals involved in the conspiracy as the real problem. Perhaps we should think of it from a medical perspective. This is a disease. Perhaps the real solution is to vaccinate Starfleet against them. No one feels as though they have any choice but to do as 'they' demand, or suffer the consequences. If they knew everyone knows about them, their usual tactics would be less likely to work -- people would have a choice to find allies to help them fend off their threats."

That left them in yet another state of shock, and Jean-Luc started to laugh quietly. Elena sighed at last. "How do you propose we do that, exactly?"

"Well, Geordi and Data are off to a good start, with their anti-spy-subroutine software scrubber -- we should turn it loose in the Starfleet network and let it quietly clean house. Release it from a public terminal on the Academy campus, where none of the cadets has enough acumen to be blamed for it, and within minutes we then release the subroutine designed to detect, analyze and report directly to the chiefs of staff if another spy subroutine is implemented. And then we send the list, to all the people on the list, with a note suggesting that orders that any of us receive through unofficial channels be sent to the rest of the list, so that everyone is able to look out for each other -- "

"You want to expose ourselves to -- "

"No," Deanna interjected, holding up a hand. Delaney subsided, settling back in his chair again. "Send the list anonymously. Use a terminal at Sausalito harbor, and stake it out. Watch and take notes on who shows up over the following twenty-four hours. If there are active agents on the list, who are not being coerced and are intending to continue their illicit activities, someone will track the transmission and show up and try to determine who sent it. It will verify that the list really is what we think it is if no one shows up."

"You've been thinking about this," Geordi exclaimed with a grin. "This is pretty devious -- but what else would we expect from someone who can beat Data at chess?"

"Thomas gave you the list, so he'll know you sent it out," Beverly said. "I don't like that idea."

"He isn't on the list. If no one does anything, he won't know. I also don't think he would do anything if he did, as he's one of the unwilling."

"The next step would then be to send a message to the rest of Starfleet," Elena said. "Because vaccinations don't do any good unless everyone is vaccinated. But that message cannot be anonymous."

"What are you suggesting?" Delaney asked. "You can't do that. You're already being watched -- what are they going to do if you send it?"

"The chiefs of staff could send it," Jean-Luc suggested. "If Starfleet in its entirety is aware it would be difficult for the conspiracy to seek revenge on the highest-ranking officers in Starfleet. The security around them has been tighter since the rumors started about Changelings being here, and so it would no doubt get tighter still in the wake of such a revelation."

"That would involve telling the other chiefs of staff about our suspicions," Data said. "Although it may be that they are already aware of the illicit actions taking place. But I am concerned that one of them may be "

Delaney, and most of the others, looked to the fleet admiral. Elena sighed, and gave Deanna a rueful smile. "You tell me." The other four admirals had been in to see the fleet admiral one at a time, and none of them had given her more than a glance, during her time in the front office -- officially she still had that job, though Elena had given her the rest of the week off.

"I haven't spoken to any of them at length, but it would make sense, wouldn't it? I wouldn't be surprised if one of the chiefs of staff had been placed there deliberately."

"Perhaps you need a chance to talk to them. The monthly meeting is next week. Do you feel up to another week of working for me?"

Deanna gave her an amused smile. "Of course. It's been straightforward enough to work there. Very quiet. Since Starfleet Command doesn't tend to fall into a spatial anomaly every few minutes, and we don't have routine alien possessions or first contacts...."

"Speaking of alien possession," Beverly said. "I've been going through my old records on the parasites, and I have a few ideas on how to go about finding them." That, of course, launched a conversation rife with medical terms, and Deanna got up silently to get another round of coffee, or whatever a particular individual was drinking. She kept an ear on the conversation as they discussed possible detection methods and check on Alexander -- he must be reading for history, he enjoyed that subject -- and then on Will Riker. While she'd been focused on what was going on in the room with them, she'd blocked the ambient "noise" of a world full of emotions out, including others she knew. 

She settled on the couch again with a cup of tea, quietly, as Beverly answered Data's questions about the chemicals that the parasites secreted into the blood and possible alterations to transporters to pick up that chemistry, the presence of the parasite, and then filtering all of that in the same manner as it typically caught pathogens before they were brought aboard the ship. The science of transporters was still developing, and it wasn't perfect. Adding to the database so that a transporter would discriminate between helpful and harmful organisms was a long process. Every species had its own gut bacteria, after all, and its own list of harmful pathogens. And in the case of this particular parasite, expecting the transporter to remove the parasite without ramifications was tricky -- at least until they found and destroyed the queen.

"I'm gathering that you are unable to sense whether someone has one of the parasites," Delaney commented in a break in the conversation, looking at Deanna.  

 "I am not. The parasite itself has no emotions. What I can sense is a disturbing lack of emotion or agitation that has no apparent cause."

"But that's not enough," Beverly added. "Not conclusive."

"I think we should get back to discussing this campaign of information -- the parasites are a problem, but I wonder if they aren't part of the larger problem. If the fact that they haven't been detected and eradicated the way they were before isn't because they are being utilized by the larger conspiracy we've identified," Jean-Luc said, speaking up for the first time in a while. 

"I have a thought -- you've said before that you are an empath, Deanna. Not a telepath. And you went last night, to screen admirals -- most of those there were new to you?"

"Yes. I think Torrance will be willing to actively assist our efforts. Most of those I met were not remarkable to me in any way. The only person I met who I didn't already suspect was Mira -- it was obvious that she was suspicious of me, and she was being very open on her thoughts regarding the Dominion and Changelings. Do you know her?"

Delaney had reacted at the very mention of Mira's name, but only internally. He glanced at Elena, who was clearly not aware of any issues with Mira. "I'm wondering if you know her?"

"She was promoted last year, worked with Admiral Leyton in Operations then moved into Tactical a month ago."

"Does Leyton have any ties to other flag officers?" Deanna thought about the last time Leyton had come to see the fleet admiral, leaving his adjutant sitting in the front office with her. Commander Benteen was the kind of officer that Captain Picard didn't care to have -- the self-importance and smugness, not in her own abilities but in her connection with Leyton.

"Of course he does. We all have ties to each other. I suppose you mean, do I suspect collusion of some kind -- it's hard to say. He is promoting his current adjutant -- she'll be shipping out on the _Lakota_ shortly. You might be able to get closer, if you're willing to fill in as his adjutant." Elena felt a little regret just suggesting it.

"I don't think I need to do that. But if we took a look at all the officers Leyton has a close connection to, and where they are currently, I wonder what we would find."

"You said that the computer notifies 'them', Delaney exclaimed. "Certainly analyzing patterns of behavior must be one of those suspicious activities they monitor."

"Geordi and Data can make the search without leaving tracks, now that they have their countermeasures. I think a similar examination of Jellico is in order."

Immediately people made faces -- Jean-Luc glanced at Beverly, at Geordi, and sighed. Elena asked, "I'm surprised at your reactions just to the mention of his name."

Jean-Luc smirked at her. "I suppose his report when he left the _Enterprise_ didn't mention difficulties he had with crew?"

Delaney was at a loss. Elena shook her head. "You are referring to the time he took command, while you were on a mission. No, he's never mentioned anything about it."

"Of course not," Deanna said. "We were all expected to follow orders, nothing more. He removed Will Riker from duty when he questioned orders."

"He did include that in the report," Elena said. "But not what was specifically said."

Deanna glanced at Beverly, at Data, at Mike and Geordi. "Why do you think we're all here, Elena?"

"I have to admit that I hadn't thought about it -- I suppose out of loyalty?"

"No," Data said. "Captain Picard doesn't appreciate blind loyalty. He wanted us to agree that these actions were necessary, and we did. I do not believe that I will continue in Starfleet, if we cannot be assured that our lives are not being monitored continually."

"I'm hoping I can escape being a casualty of someone else's illegal activities," Mike said, tucking his arm around Leila. "Thinking I'm probably one of their potential targets, given the sort of work they do."

"You haven't met my son," Beverly said. "I really think I want the Federation to leave him alone, let him be brilliant and innovative without treating him like an asset."

"I want my mother back," Deanna said. "I want my foster son to be able to come back to see us, if he decides he wants to spend time in the Klingon Empire, and I'd rather be on Betazed than in Starfleet if I can't live without the fear of being targeted as an asset again."

Elena stared at her, in a state of such mixed emotions that Deanna wondered if she was questioning her own involvement in this endeavor. "You are implying that Jellico's expectations were straightforward -- you should all follow orders -- and that you were doing as you would have if Captain Picard were in command. And that resulted in Jellico confining the first officer to quarters."

"For daring to suggest that steps be taken to find Captain Picard, yes," Deanna said. She said nothing further, as she noticed Jean-Luc's increasing nervousness; he likely didn't want a discussion of the torture he'd endured.

Elena continued to feel the muddled and conflicting emotions and was obviously contemplating what response to give.

"I realize the Cardassians have been a longstanding source of frustration and that diplomacy in the straightforward manner most Federation diplomats employ isn't possible, with them. It would be a little like going back in time, to the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries of Earth -- and it's a little like confronting these agents, this conspiracy, who view the honesty and openness of others as naive and simplistic." Deanna sighed, and looked at the other end of the couch, at Geordi. "When will you be ready to deploy the new programming?"

"I think we could do it tomorrow. Time it for midmorning, when all the cadets are in class."

"Will it go unnoticed?" Jean-Luc asked.

"Until they stop receiving new information from their subroutine," Data said. "We embedded code that will place a copy of the new subroutines in the mainframe at Command, and spawn itself anew each week. I estimate that it will propagate across the entire Starfleet network within two months."

"How will you log into the network at the Academy?" Delaney asked.

"An account will not be required," Data said. "We have created a delivery method that does not use a log in account."

Delaney glanced around, and appealed at last to Elena. "You're sure this isn't something diabolical? Shouldn't we run this by Operations staff?"

"How many people in Operations are part of the conspiracy, and will anyone who helps us there be able to escape consequences of their involvement in this?" Jean-Luc gestured at Deanna. "Should we consider postponing this?"

"Until?"

"Until we've had a little more time to think about it, and whether there might be a better place."

"The public terminals in the library at the Academy are fairly anonymous," Data said. "As Geordi is adjunct staff no one would question his presence."

"I agree that we should postpone it," Elena said. "At least a week. I want to bring Leyton in, and I want you to be there, Deanna. The Changeling imitated him. I want more information about him before we implement the rest of it."

Everyone else looked to Jean-Luc, who shrugged. "I'd like answers about Leyton as well as Mira. I didn't care for the way she spoke openly at a diplomatic reception. And I'd like to know more about the men who were at the reception. Are we agreed to postpone and meet again in a week?"

It was agreed -- why not, since there was no pressing need to implement the subroutine at any given time -- and they set the time of the next meeting in seven days, after dinner. Deanna waited for everyone to leave, and as the last person went out the door, she went to Alexander's room to let him know they would be leaving shortly. She found the little Klingon sitting on his bed holding his father's mek'leth.

"Thinking about your father?" She sat next to him and let him lean against her.

"I haven't been practicing my weapons. I should," he murmured.

"Is that what you want?"

Alexander sighed heavily. "Father told me once that I should accept I'm a Klingon, and stop trying to avoid it."

"I think you should be what you want to be," she said.

"But everyone in the Federation will look at me and see a Klingon. I'm treated like one all the time. Some of the kids at school tell me to fight that one kid, Benny, he won't stop bothering people at recess."

Deanna put her arms around him. "What other people do isn't your responsibility -- unless the school hires you to take care of security, you should get a teacher when there's a problem and someone might get hurt."

"But that's like being a snitch," he said with moan.

"So you're frustrated, you think something should be done about it, but you don't want to do what the school expects you to, and you don't want to fight -- what other options are there?"

"I guess I could talk to Benny."

"Hmmm, so you haven't done that yet?"

"I don't like talking to mean kids. But he hasn't bothered me."

"You'll have to let me know how that goes. Ready to go sailing?"

He grinned, and put aside the mek'leth as they stood up together. "The meeting is done?"

"Yes. And we're ready to go."

Jean-Luc had a bag over his shoulder when they rejoined him at the front door, and smiled as they came to him. "I have a shuttle meeting us on the street to take us to the harbor," he said. "And I have plenty of anti-nausea medication, just in case."

"It isn't as though I don't have plenty of practice being sick," Deanna commented as they left the apartment. It was, she reflected in the lift as Alexander began the usual chatter, fairly easy to forget their "mission" and go back to living their lives.


	55. Admiral Leyton and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, there is zero consistency on the internet at large about the structure of Starfleet. For an organization based on current military organizations yet not exactly military in stated intent, it's pretty wishy washy throughout canon as to who does what. In my other stories I make the fleet admiral just another high ranking officer in charge of one of the fleets (the Enterprise is generally assigned to the seventh fleet in canon so far as I can tell) but in this one she's one of the chiefs of staff, in charge of general fleet operation -- the others are department heads. 
> 
> In Homefront (episode 483, season four, DS9) Leyton has Sisko return to Earth and become "head of Starfleet security here on Earth." I had to really dig around in Memory Alpha's wiki to find anything that indicated he has the authority to do so. He is apparently in canon the Chief of Starfleet Operations. Why he doesn't set off warning bells in people's heads just putting Sisko in there instead of suggesting it to whatever admiral administrates security on Earth is the question no one asks in the episode. Also, Sisko goes to the president of the Federation -- who is not a dictator and not a part of Starfleet -- instead of someone with direct authority over Starfleet, like maybe Leyton's superior officer. Why? Does not compute.
> 
> In other words, I'm making up stuff about the structure of Starfleet, just like everyone (including the writers of the show) always does. And I don't think it would go the way it did in the episodes.

Deanna sat up straighter, raising her eyes from her trio of monitors, when the door opened to admit the chiefs of staff. Four admirals entered the room with Elena. "Hold all calls, Commander. If you would bring us a pot of tea and refreshments." 

The fleet admiral strode through into her office, and Admiral D'Mora, Admiral Delaney, Admiral Leyton and Admiral Beaumont followed her in a line without so much as a look at Deanna. None of them were Changelings, so Deanna turned to the replicator behind her and went about the task of getting refreshments for the gathered officers. She carried the tray into the fleet admiral's office and set it on the end of the oval table she used for meetings like this, and while the admirals spoke she quietly made Elena's tea.

"Why would you do that?" Delaney asked, frustrated, continuing some conversation that started before Deanna entered the room. 

"We need someone who understands the Founders," Leyton exclaimed. "Sisko is on his way -- he'll be here shortly."

"I'm curious," Elena said nonchalantly. "It's come to my attention that you've been reassigning quite a few officers. Almost two hundred of them, to date. And it's not always within your current chain of command, in Operations, and usually the reassigned officer is one you've known personally. Usually one who's been in your chain of command, at some point in their career."

Leyton bristled silently for a moment. His alarm at that statement rose and his composure faltered. He was so caught up in it that he didn't even look at Deanna. "Admiral?"

"You also seem to have taken a keen interest in a group of cadets, at the Academy. I do not believe that's in your job description, is it? Operations has many departments within it. The Academy is not one of them."

"Admiral, you've been known to take a direct approach -- to brief starship captains before -- "

"Yes, that is true. I have spoken directly to many line officers, after discussing the matter with their immediate superiors and agreeing that the matter was urgent enough that my intervention would speak to the officer loud and clear that it was so important. Apparently, you did not speak to the commandant of the Academy about Red Squad before you created them. Also, this unilateral decision to put a captain assigned to the space station at the mouth of the direct route to the Dominion on Earth, at a time when suspicions that the Dominion are moving on the Federation are at an all time high, without informing the rest of us -- this is a curious decision for you to make on your own. Curious too that you had to be asked about that, by the chief of Starfleet Security." Elena didn't so much as glance at Deanna as she set a cup and saucer before her and turned to go. 

"Admiral, I think we should take a moment to remember that it's written into the charter that at times -- "

"Commander," Elena called, as Deanna reached the door. At the interruption Leyton lapsed into silence. Deanna turned back to come to attention, as all five admirals looked at her. "Tell me something. If your former commanding officer gave you orders while you were assigned here, in my office, would you follow them?"

Deanna blinked and didn't have to feign puzzlement -- this was unusual, to say the least. She was supposed to be unobtrusively present. "Not without questioning it, sir."

"Even Captain Picard?"

Deanna smiled at that. "Oh -- that would be his expectation, because it would be very unusual for him to do that. Given the times we've encountered aliens who were capable of controlling an individual to their own ends, he would want us to question something he did that was suspect."

"This proves nothing," Leyton exclaimed. "Commander, you were the one who apprehended the Changeling who was imitating me -- do you think that you should have asked permission before you fired?"

Deanna froze in place and glanced around, projecting the appearance of being conflicted. 

"Speak freely, Commander," Elena said. "Answer the question."

"There is a difference between making the decision to fire upon an obvious threat, and the implementation of preemptive strategies on a large scale without regard to chain of command."

Leyton leaned forward, hands and forearms on the table, as if trying to convince Elena through body language. "Admiral, we cannot afford to wait through meeting after meeting -- action must be taken! The Founders are here, among us, now!"

"And so you make your own plans, and quietly carry them out, and wait for people loyal to you to get into position," Delaney said quietly.

Leyton went quiet for a moment, and his inner turmoil held some desperation -- but he held firm. "Admiral, I want you to know that I only have the best interests of the Federation in mind. I want you to know that I understand your concerns... but I have concerns of my own. I'm afraid there are officers in our chain of command who are taking part in a conspiracy."

Deanna noticed the look between Delaney and Elena, and thought that Beaumont had caught it as well. Beaumont, a stocky triple-chinned man of mixed descent -- she thought mostly human, though he had some faint markings around his face reminiscent of a Trill and slightly-pronounced forehead ridges -- was also not surprised by this dramatic revelation. "People have mentioned conspiracies for as long as I have been in Starfleet," he rumbled. "Some of them are claimed to be reactions to other conspiracies. I have never seen actual proof of any of them."

"Which officers?" Delaney exclaimed. He picked up his tea and gestured at Leyton. "What proof is there?"

Leyton smiled sadly, shook his head, let his eyes fall to the table between them. "You ask me for proof of something that difficult to detect, let alone accumulate proof of -- I'm sure no one in this room can say they've never seen any suspicious behavior on the parts of officers."

"Which officers?" Elena asked, echoing Delaney. 

"I have reason to believe there is corruption throughout Starfleet Command, Admiral Nechayev. Starting with Security," Leyton exclaimed. "I believe Admiral Delaney should be your next in line to be scrutinized -- it's been suggested to me that his recent visit to the Demilitarized Zone was a cover for a meeting with the Dominion."

"Commander, is he lying?" Elena asked.

The reason for not being dismissed was now clear, and Leyton's head jerked right as he stared at Deanna, his abrupt shift to alarm obvious. 

"Yes, he's lying about Admiral Delaney. I'm sure he is aware of corruption, however."

"Why are you moving officers around within Starfleet on such a grand scale?" Elena asked. 

"As I said, I am trying to address -- "

"No," Deanna exclaimed. "You are not. Try again."

Leyton didn't bother to look at Deanna, but began to raise his voice at the fleet admiral. "We cannot protect the Federation against the Dominion with policy and procedure! All due respect to you, Admirals, we cannot simply talk about this endlessly -- since the bombing of the conference in Antwerp there has been an increasing number of sightings of Changelings -- "

"Alleged sightings, with nothing to substantiate that they were anything more than paranoia," Delaney said. "Since the incident at Antwerp was publicized there have been hundreds of investigations and no evidence. James, you can't be seriously expecting me to believe you honestly think you must step in without consulting any of your peers. Without consulting me -- and now you're accusing me of dealing with the Dominion."

"An investigation is warranted, wouldn't you say, gentlemen?" Elena asked. "Admiral Delaney, please take Admiral Leyton into custody and inform Internal Affairs that I am requesting a thorough examination of the admiral's behavior over the past six months."

"You're going to take the word of a single commander over mine?" Leyton shouted in outrage. 

"I have checked on the behavior of multiple officers lately, in fact, and find that Admiral Delaney, Admiral Beaumont, and Admiral D'Mora have shown no behavior atypical to an admiral and chief of staff -- nothing in their record shows anything suspicious. Their decision-making is consistent with what they have said in here, meeting with me, and with the general trajectory of their decision-making style over time. And since I am responsible for oversight of the chiefs of staff, I'll be forwarding a report to our commander in chief as I am required to do, informing him of this decision to investigate your behavior. So no, Mr. Leyton, I am not taking the word of a single commander -- although it's not unusual, apparently, that the commander's ability to detect a lie has been at times useful in triggering an investigation that later bore out her observations as valid."

"Commander, please have the security officers I placed in the corridor come in," Delaney said. 

"Aye, sir," she said, moving toward the door. She was through and approaching the second door when a scuffle ensued, and then Leyton shoved her against the wall as he attempted to run -- Deanna reacted to his assault without hesitation, using momentum to shove herself off the wall and slam herself against the fleeing admiral, using a foot to trip him up and send him sprawling across the floor and through the door. Delaney caught up to him and grabbed the back of his jacket, shouting orders to his officers, and it took moments for the two lieutenant-commanders to have him restrained as one of them requested immediate transport to the detention facility. Delaney came in again, the door closing. 

"Thank you, Commander," he said, then hesitated. He hadn't been completely briefed on all their pre-arranged code words; he glanced around nervously, aware that they were suspecting monitoring in the fleet admiral's office but unsure what to do next.

Elena saved them by coming out of her office. "Charles, are you coming back in? We still have some business at hand. Commander, the tea is cold -- thanks to the interruption. Could you get us more?"

"Yes, sir."

"Pastries as well. You know what I like."

Deanna brought the new tray with the hot pot of green tea through and went through the same motions, removing the cold tea. And then placed the cylindrical object Geordi had provided in the center of the table, and turned it on. The request for pastries had been the signal to deploy it.

"What is that?" D'Mora exclaimed. The Bolian glanced up as Delaney and Nechayev rounded the table to seat themselves where they had been before.

"It emits interference that disrupts surveillance devices commonly used by Starfleet Intelligence," Elena said, gazing across the table at Beaumont, the director of Starfleet Intelligence. "Do you have any objections to using it? Leyton was correct in one thing, at least, that there are people watching, conspiring -- I had a man arrested near my home this morning, for trespassing. I have reason to believe my conversations with others have been recorded -- I have been provided with recordings that should not exist, of conversations I believed were made in confidence."

"You're being stalked?" D'Mora glanced around in alarm as if he could see it happening. "There should be more security!"

"They'll send more officers to stand sentry outside this office," Delaney said. "And there are six more monitoring the perimeter around the admiral's house."

"I hope you are not adverse to using this device," Elena said. "It will become a regular occurrence, in the wake of Leyton's behavior."

"Not at all," Beaumont said. "The man who was arrested near your house, was it a Dominion spy?"

Elena looked at Deanna. "Sit down, please. I want you gentlemen to understand something. This discussion does not leave this room, and further discussion of anything we say in here will not take place unless we are either isolated in a location without Starfleet terminals, away from Starfleet installations, or we are operating a dampening device such as the one I have here today."

The trio of admirals looked at her placidly and waited -- none of them were suspicious, defensive, or otherwise setting off alarm bells for Deanna. She nodded to Elena, and reached for the cup that Leyton wouldn't be using to pour herself a cup of tea.

"There is a conspiracy afoot within Starfleet," Elena asserted firmly. "I have no doubt that you are aware of it. And you have no proof, and you likely have been unaware of where to turn for fear of tipping them off that you were attempting to do something about them?"

"I have an inkling," Beaumont said. "I suppose you want to do something about them?"

Elena stared at the admiral, as stony as her reputation tended to be. 

"I have never heard of such a thing," D'Mora said. 

"However, if you had, you would not be so careless as to talk openly about it, would you?" Beaumont exclaimed, fixing a glare on the admiral seated next to him.

"Admiral Nechayev has made it clear that I should not."

"Enough," Elena said sternly. "I want you to tell me whether or not you will be able to at the very least keep what is said here in the strictest confidence."

"Of course I will," Beaumont said. D'Mora nodded and contemplated the tea cup in front of him. Deanna thought she understood why -- she reached across to collect D'Mora's cup and went out to the replicator, and returned with a glass of dark blue liquid, which the admiral took a sniff and smiled at. Bolians had very different taste, thanks to their body chemistry.

"You're going to tell us there actually is a conspiracy, such as what Leyton was describing?" D'Mora asked after taking a drink.

"They've been manipulating Starfleet for years. They've been using the Maquis to their ends. The man who was watching my home was one of them."

Delaney watched Deanna, as he followed up on that. "He was a former officer -- he would have been convicted of a crime, court-martialed, imprisoned, and he was -- but if you look in Starfleet records you'll think the man resigned from Starfleet and his whereabouts are currently unknown. That shouldn't happen, and it tells me that someone is manipulating Starfleet's computers. We have reason to suspect they are monitoring activities of officers beyond mission-related requests of the computers."

"Hence the countermeasure." Beaumont hesitated, his mind working furiously as it had been since Elena had confronted Leyton. He trained his dark eyes on Deanna, then, and set the tea cup down as if he saw a need to protect it. "How am I to know that she is trustworthy? Since we're on the topic of trust, and deception, and conspiracy."

Elena gave him a smile, surprising Deanna with the moment of fondness for the other admiral. "Why don't you ask her if she's trustworthy?"

"I think you believe she is. What is it that reassures you?" 

Elena turned to gaze at Deanna, seated on her left hand. "I know that she detests falsehood and secrecy. I know that her friends and fellow officers trust her without reservation. As noted already, she has identified a Changeling in our midst, as well as Leyton's duplicity -- she's not indicated mistrust in anyone that came as a surprise to me."

It took seconds for it to sink in. Beaumont snorted. "This is why you hired her, of course. To scan and root out deception at Command. A counselor, serving you tea and monitoring your schedule? And so I passed muster?"

"Have you ever been blackmailed, Admiral Beaumont?" Deanna asked.

The admiral's laughter was slightly deeper than Worf's had been, and similar in cadence. "I see I underestimated -- it's the lovely face, and that sweet smile."

"Did he answer the question, Deanna?" Elena asked. 

"Yes, he did. And yes, he has been blackmailed. It's a common thing in officers four pips and above, I suspect, and his name is on the list after all. So we are confirming rather than learning."

Beaumont lost his affable smile. "And just how are you gleaning answers from me?" he asked coolly.

"I'm an empath. Not a telepath. I know how you feel. As I asked the question, you felt guilt, anger, frustration, even a little pain -- hatred. What we all tend to feel, when forced to do something against our personal ethics."

"We are going to stop future blackmail," Elena announced. "We are going to send a message -- after Leyton is convicted of treason, which I have no doubt he will be, the four of us will inform all of Starfleet that there are people among us who do not operate within regulations, and that officers need to be aware of the difference between the letter of the law, and the spirit of the law."

"That's going to be an interesting message," Delaney said laconically. "Somehow warning officers but avoiding any appearance of dissension and mistrust in the ranks."

"I'm aware of that. But there's war brewing, and not knowing who is planning the next _coup d'etat_ we should be proactive. Leyton has his people positioned throughout the fleet and here on Earth -- can you guess what he was really intending to do, had he succeeded?"

D'Mora gave Beaumont a dismayed look. Both of them turned to eye Delaney, sitting on Elena's right, and Deanna heard the admiral sigh. "You know she's right."

"So we'll craft this message -- "

"Without using Starfleet computers," Elena interjected firmly. "I can't stress that enough. And you will all have additional security officers -- I'm not the only one at risk. I'm using the transporter liberally, now, transporting directly to and from locations instead of taking public transport or walking. Further, we need Leyton's successor looked at -- Shelly, you can run a check on him at once, let me know if there are any abnormalities? We need an interim director of Operations, because we'll need technicians to start looking at the systems here at Command for anomalous code. Spyware, so to speak."

"All right, Elena," Beaumont said with a sigh. "Anything else that needs immediate attention?"

Elena turned to Deanna, as if to ask. Deanna smiled at her. "If you are able to clear your schedule for a nineteen hundred meeting, seven days from now, you may come to the penthouse suite at the Grenada for poker."

"Poker," D'Mora repeated, confused.

"Among other things. We have been making plans to deal with the issue of the conspiracy's infiltration of our computer systems. Any questions?" Elena asked crisply. The admirals heard the dismissal, asked no questions, and went their way to follow orders. 

Elena sipped her tea, and took a moment to regroup. "It wasn't what we discussed, but I hope you forgive my taking the initiative," she said at last.

"I choose my commanding officers carefully. I think it was a good opportunity, and I hope that this works as you intend it to. I don't think the others will find the slight re-ordering of steps disturbing. But Delaney needs to be certain he keeps Leyton securely locked up." Deanna thought about the meeting. "You said you caught someone near your house?"

"I had Charles send security to scour the area -- we found Riker," she said quietly. "He was arrested for trespassing. He was in a house down the street, and there were several surveillance devices discovered in my yard."

"I hope you have him more securely than he was the last time."

"As do I. Deanna... I hope you understand that I will be careful. But I was becoming uncomfortable with the clandestine nature of our plans, and I prefer to take this the rest of the way with the cooperation of the other admirals, and with full investigations to back up any charges against the guilty parties. I agree with you, however, that the implementation of the subroutines your friends have created will have to be a secret and as anonymous as possible. I only hope their program works as quietly as they think it will."

"You know how we've relied on their expertise in the past," Deanna said, thinking about all the times Data or Geordi had pulled off the seemingly-impossible. 

"Well. I have another meeting, in half an hour."

"I'll just clear this all away. Jean-Luc should be along shortly -- he wants to take me to lunch."

Elena was amused by that. "As long as you're back by two. I have the Korgan ambassador coming in to meet with me."

Deanna reached for the device and shut it off, then set it on the tray and collected the rest of the cups. "Admiral, would you like me to contact the admirals to reschedule once the interim director of Operations has been selected?"

"Yes. That will be all, Commander."


	56. The Best Laid Schemes o' Mice an' Men Gang Aft A-Gley

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aka, when the careful plans you make go astray, from the Robert Burns poem, To a Mouse.
> 
> If you are familiar with DS9 episodes you might have predicted this one.

"I don't like it."

Mike voiced what others were thinking. They were gathered on the rooftop patio of their favorite restaurant along the Embarcadero, for an impromptu meeting to update everyone on the admiral's abrupt action -- Deanna hadn't asked Elena along, as she knew her friends still held the admiral at arm's length. Having them voice criticism openly with the admiral present would probably destroy their alliance with her, as Elena had been in a state of high anxiety throughout the meeting with the chiefs of staff, and she doubted Elena would be able to tolerate questions. 

"I didn't like it either," Jean-Luc said. He had met Deanna for lunch and she had relayed it all to him, and on their walk across the Presidio grounds to a nearby restaurant he had vented his frustrations about it already. "But it's been done, for better or worse, and the fallout has no doubt already begun."

"At least Will is locked up again," Beverly exclaimed. "He belongs in there. I hope whoever owns the property he was lurking on presses charges."

Mike socked his fist into his palm, making it clear how he felt on that matter. Leila rolled her eyes. Behind them, the sun was setting over the Pacific -- it was a lovely view, almost distracting.

"It's not as though the first round of charges really worked," Geordi said wearily. It was hard to get used to his implants. The visor now a thing of the past, he looked so different -- and it wasn't immediately apparent that he had artificial eyes, until one came closer and noticed the mechanical iris. 

"What do you believe is likely to happen next?" Data asked. The lamp on the post at his corner of the table flickered to life, as did the one on the other end of the table. Artificial candles placed at regular intervals on the table came on as well.

"Elena told the chiefs of staff to expect to send a message to all of Starfleet, once the matter of Leyton's court-martial is settled. Essentially, she's covering us -- making it seem as though the message will be a result of Leyton's behavior, not arising spontaneously as a reaction to other conspiracies. Security has increased around Command, and the flag officers who work there. Internal Affairs is investigating Leyton. I am also certain that Beaumont, Delaney and D'Mora are safe -- although I wouldn't doubt Beaumont has been involved in illicit actions in the past, he didn't do so willingly. He and Elena are actually friends."

"Deanna, have you ever heard of engramatic disassociation?" Beverly asked.

"No. Why?"

"While I was at Starfleet Medical with Geordi, I spent some time at a terminal while he was in surgery. I wanted to review some of the literature on memory management," she said, picking up her glass to sip her margarita. They had talked about the possibility of _them_ tampering with memories, during one meeting, and Beverly had expressed a desire to see if any of them had been tampered with but lacked a sickbay in which to do it safely, without leaving tracks in Starfleet systems. "I found something in Starfleet files about creating deliberate disassociation in the human brain, to conceal information -- essentially hide it from the person himself."

"Ridiculous," Deanna exclaimed. "Such a level of disassociation occurs only when trauma is extreme and the person is completely unable to defend himself -- extensive ongoing abuse of a child is the only way that happens. That wouldn't be possible to replicate in an adult."

"Well, someone in Starfleet is studying it. I'll give you one guess."

Deanna frowned, and wished her life could have been simpler for the millionth -- billionth? -- time. "I had a message from Kate waiting for me when I got home, but I didn't take the time to listen to it. Not that she was likely contacting me about that. It's probably about what happened at Command. But I'm not surprised that she would be studying something like that, it sounds like something _they_  would be interested in."

"What is it supposed to do?" Jean-Luc asked. "Is it intended to be something done to the person, and managed by someone else? Is it supposed to be a tactic that someone uses himself, to compartmentalize and avoid detection by telepaths?"

"From what I read, it would be a way of using an agent without the agent ever realizing he was an agent. If the agent had this  feature embedded in their brain, they would never be able to access the information without the intervention of the handler."

The ramifications were enough to silence everyone for a while. Anyone at the table could be a double agent, and not even realize it. 

"None of you could have had this done to you," Deanna exclaimed at last. "None of you have an extended period off the ship during which this could be done to you -- the time you've been away on missions, there were witnesses who would have commented upon your absence. I would have sensed anything, had there been any tampering while you were aboard the ship. And since we have been here on Earth I would have sensed your distress, had anyone accosted you and taken you away to do this."

"Unless an entire away team were taken, and everyone's memories altered," Beverly said. "It does seem unlikely though, and it did sound as though the process was in the experimental phase. Not actually in use."

"Publishing that it has been used would not be in anyone's best interests," Data said matter-of-factly. "Use of this technique violates most ethical codes. It would be an assault on the person. Even if done with the person's permission, once they were restored to the amnesiatic state, it would make the person little more than a tool -- a slave to the handler's whim."

"It could have been done on leave," Jean-Luc said quietly. "Any of the three of us who went to Lavonia spent time alone there. Memories of that leave could have been fabricated."

"It could have been done to one or more of the admirals," Leila said.

"Or the article could have been planted there to make people like us paranoid," Deanna exclaimed. "Speculating is useless. We're already on a course of action. We could stop now, and return to our lives, find new postings, go on as usual. Pretend none of this happened and hope that if it's come to _their_  attention that they will leave us alone after we stop. But, I think implementing the computer software fix should happen regardless. Why should it be so easy for them to spy on us? I don't think engramatic disassociation is even possible. Altering memories is only possible by wiping everything in short term memory -- it's not even possible to target specific memories. There's no way to do something like that, not when every single brain is unique."

For a moment, Jean-Luc speculated -- concern and fear boiled behind his stony expression -- then turned at the approach of the waitress bringing a tray laden with food, shutting it all down quickly. And then the conversation turned to other things for a while, Mike asking about the best time to work with Alexander, as he had agreed to help the boy continue his weapons training since Deanna was pregnant and Jean-Luc had expressed anxiety at the thought of her being in the path of a bat'leth. And after everyone had been served, drinks refreshed, and the wait staff retreated into the restaurant below, Jean-Luc addressed the table again.

"Deanna is correct -- without some evidence of tampering, we cannot assume any. But I wonder if you might be able to find out more, from Kate, if you can sway her...."

"How did I know you were going to say that?" Deanna trimmed a vegetable into a bite-sized series of pieces, shaking her head.

And then the lights went out.

The sun had just gone below the horizon, so there was still enough dusky light to see people and furniture, but details were hard to make out. And around them, throughout the city, panic -- Deanna cried out, dropping her fork, surprised and overwhelmed by it.

"No one has experienced a power outage here," she exclaimed. "Everyone is terrified. It's the entire city -- it's more than that -- I think it's the continent, the power's down everywhere!"

"We should go -- " But Jean-Luc stopped, as he no doubt realized as they all did -- without power, modern buildings with motor-driven doors and lifts would be inaccessible. And most of them lived in modern buildings. There was a lift here in the restaurant, in fact.

"I guess we're lucky we're outside," Beverly exclaimed. "I think we should stay put."

"We have food and drink," Mike said, ever the pragmatic. "We have each other."

Deanna leaned forward slightly and did her best to block out everything.

"Dee's getting a headache," Jean-Luc commented. "I don't suppose anyone happens to have psylosynine inhibitor?"

 "Just give me a minute." She tried to focus, first on Jean-Luc to steady herself, then on Alexander -- it was difficult but she located him through the fear. "Alexander is frightened but Wes is with him, they're calming down. They're locked in our apartment and we're locked out, without the power. So I guess we have to wait."

They ate and Deanna nibbled, trying to settle her nerves, and her stomach. She managed to focus more on Jean-Luc to block out the panic, and since he had gotten over the initial shock of losing power and watching a brightly-lit city go to blackout he was calm, concerned, and still thinking.

A chirp -- Deanna, like most of them, carried her communicator everywhere. She retrieved it from a fold in the red wrap she'd wound around herself against the chill. "Troi here."

"Commander, I'm sorry but I need you to report to the office at once."

"Yes, sir. It might take some time," she responded.

"If you are ready, the transporter attendant has a lock on your communicator. We have backup power here."

"Admiral, would you need any additional support?" Jean-Luc asked. "We have six officers here."

"Thank you, Captain. Be ready for transport at once. Nechayev, out."

Everyone stood up as the beamout started. They materialized in the main transporter room at Command, familiar to Deanna as she had used it on occasion, and she led the way out and down the corridors toward Nechayev's offices. All the doors were open and staying that way, as was usual -- house computers were usually programmed to disengage the door mechanism in the event of a power outage, allowing occupants a way out. The lights were at half intensity, throughout.

As she entered her office, Elena came out of hers. "Deanna," she said. "I'm sorry to interrupt your night out."

"What can we do for you, Admiral?" Deanna asked.

Elena smiled -- it was uncharacteristic of her, here in the office and wearing her uniform. "You can be safe. The computers are down, and I'm hearing reports that people are panicking all over the planet. We're trying to understand what happened that could have taken down the planetary power grid so quickly and without warning." So she hadn't needed assistance after all. But she hadn't wanted to invite them to come for their own safety, over Starfleet communication channels. 

"So this is where Deanna spends her time," Mike said, leaning into the room. "Needs a bar."

"Yes, because pregnant women absolutely should spend their time drinking," Leila quipped.

Elena led them down to the small conference room -- it was larger, and had enough chairs for everyone -- and offered up the use of the replicator. Admiral Beaumont was already there, speaking to someone over a comm channel. The communications network at large was likely not working, but the backup generator at Command seemed to be allocated to communications and transporters.

"Get on it, Darius, you know what to do," Beaumont exclaimed. "We're in the middle of a major attack on Earth -- I'll contact you when there's less chaos. Beaumont out."

"Hello, Admiral," Deanna said as she brought over the tea she'd replicated and sat across the table from him.

The admiral glanced around at all of them with mild curiosity. "This appears to be a reunion of the former senior officers of the _Enterprise_."

"It was. We were at a restaurant," Deanna said.

"I called the commander in, and the rest came with her. I felt given the circumstances we have been discussing that it was prudent."

Beaumont nodded and picked up his cup of coffee. "We are in an island of calm, ladies and gentlemen.  Have a seat. We may be here for a while."

"You said this was an attack," Deanna asked.

"We assume it's an aggressive move. There haven't been troops or invasion forces, or any aggression that we've noticed so far." Beaumont glanced at Elena, returning from the replicator with her cup of coffee, and turned back to smile at Deanna. "Do you sense anything that might give us a hint?"

"Worldwide panic. It's overwhelming. It took a lot of effort to block it out -- I have a headache now."

"I'm going to test this replicator's ability to produce medical supplies," Beverly said, getting up and leaving her tea to ask the computer for a hypospray. She came to offer Deanna the inhibitor, and raised an eyebrow at Deanna's response.

"Half a dose. I don't need to be completely numb. I want to sense people who are in the room with me."

"Just panic?" Beaumont asked, watching Beverly press the hypo against Deanna's neck.

"There are likely other emotions but the panic is overwhelming enough that I don't detect them. Do you think this was caused by the Dominion?"

"If it was, I'm at a loss as to what their motive might be. I would expect them to move the minute the grid went down, not wait for us to get security on the streets." Beaumont raised his cup to Elena. "As you said, it makes very little sense to not take advantage of the panic."

The next voice came out of the air. "Delaney to Nechayev."

"Yes, Charles?"

"The president has been moved to a secure location and I'm on my way back to Command. I've also been informed that there have not been any breaches of the perimeter at Command, nor have there been incidents at other Starfleet installations. The shipyards are secure."

"We're in the lounge down the corridor from my office, if you would care to join us when you get back."

"Acknowledged."

"It's disconcerting, how quiet it is here." Jean-Luc was as good as the admirals at concealing his anxiety.

"Quite different than klaxons and approaching warbirds," Beaumont said. "But this is the first time in more than a hundred years that Earth has been attacked this way."

"And the first time thousands have been without power. Very alarming for everyone." Elena glanced up as the door opened and Delaney came in, acknowledging those gathered with a nod.

"Please tell me the detention facility has a backup generator," Beverly blurted suddenly.

A few moments of silence, and heads turned -- looking to Delaney. "It does," he said.

"Is it still working?" Jean-Luc asked.

Delaney tapped his badge. "Delaney to Garrison!" When there was no answer, the admiral spun about and ran from the room.

"I hate it when this happens," Deanna said, sinking lower in her chair and considering a request for something to settle her stomach.

"Why so concerned about the detention facility? The loss of power will mean locked outer doors. Prisoners might riot inside but they can't leave the building."

"I wouldn't make such assumptions," Geordi said.

"Especially with the way things have been going," Mike exclaimed. "For all anyone knows _they_ have contingencies, all set up, just for the occasion."

Beaumont exchanged a look with Elena. The fleet admiral nodded slowly. "They do have all of this thought out, Marius."

The door opened, and Delaney returned. He strolled in and around the table on the side opposite Deanna, coming around behind Nechayev and Beaumont. "The detention facility has lost power, and is locked down," he said.

Deanna stared at the man and kept her face straight. It was like looking at a hologram -- there was no neurological energy of any kind, no emotion, emanating from him. Delaney, at least this version of him, was a Changeling.

"Something wrong, Commander?" Delaney smiled at her.

"I'm just tired of it," Deanna said. "You think you're fooling everyone. Time after time you walk around in someone else's body, and you think no one notices -- but your body language is off. You stare a little too long, you can't quite manage a real smile. Every human on the planet has a better grasp of nonverbal language and they can tell there's something off about you, but you keep trying, and we keep letting you listen to us lie to you, to keep you from taking the truth back to the Dominion."

Everyone froze in place as soon as they realized what she was saying. No one moved, but Delaney sneered. "You're just saying that."

Deanna smiled at him serenely. "You think so? I just want you all to go home and stop chasing your pretense of deception. I think it's pointless. All the spies and counter-spies, the lies, the fakery -- it's all so tedious. What a ridiculous sense of entitlement you have -- the Founders have the Great Link, so you're superior? Sad -- believing your own propaganda. The war will be lost because of your Great Link. Ask yourself why any telepathic species in the galaxy doesn't fall into the trap of a "Great Link" -- it's because doing so loses the advantage of perspective. If you can't think for yourselves and discuss all sides of the issue, you don't have options -- you get one option. You pretend it's the only one, the best one... and you are WRONG." Deanna stood up as she spoke and walked slowly back and forth. "Without debate and rational examination, you haven't considered all possibilities. So I think you are stupid. Small-minded, single-minded, and stupid."

"Commander," Elena exclaimed, scolding.

"It's true," Deanna shot back. "The Founders are so convinced of their own superiority that they'll fail. They don't realize how useless their spying is."

"So you're trying to help us succeed? I find that unlikely," Delaney exclaimed with a smirk.

Deanna crossed her arms. "Something about people who lie and sneak -- they stop being able to tell truth from fiction. You know nothing about me. You think every single person who isn't a Founder is the same -- again, you are wrong. So very, very wrong. There are plenty of people who hate war. Plenty who don't know Founders exist. Plenty who think we can manage some diplomatic solution to avoid war. Everyone disagrees, but they all work together anyway. That makes us stronger than you. Being able to disagree with each other and survive just the same. You're deciding that everyone you disagree with is lying. Wrong!"

The door opened, and several things happened in the next few seconds -- Delaney took a step into the room, the faux Delaney dissolved into a flowing silver mass that poured itself toward the door along a jagged path, and Mike leaped to his feet, whipped a phaser out of a pocket, and shot at the stream of shape shifter. Beaumont slapped his comm badge and started paging people, a security team, and before long they had another bubbling mass of stunned Changeling on the floor and a room full of security.

Jean-Luc edged out of the melee and stood with Deanna near the replicator. He was concerned about her, a little angry -- she hadn't waited for someone else to intervene. She'd ignored him, in fact, knowing full well from his ire and impatience that he was waiting for a moment to break into the conversation, but was also held by curiosity about what she was doing, uncertain of her plan.

Elena stepped back as well, and watched a lieutenant trying to push the gelatinous mass into a bag. "Deanna, what were you trying to do?"

"I wanted everyone to know what he was but I also wanted to distract and delay him."

"Perhaps we should have some signal in place that doesn't rely on cues specific to my office," Elena said. She was right -- no way for them to talk about a delivery in the context of a lounge, or a mess hall, or someone else's office. 

"We'll discuss it at the next meeting. On Monday, if we are all able," Jean-Luc said. "I suspect you will want to continue to focus on the issue of the outage and what it means."

"What if it means there are Changelings in other locations attempting to -- we have no idea what he meant to do," Elena exclaimed. "You distracted him before he could do it."

"Either you or Admiral Beaumont must have been the target. He could hardly know the rest of us were here," Deanna said. "And there are no other reasons for him to enter this lounge."

Beaumont returned to the lounge, edging in past departing security personnel. Delaney was with him and both looked grim. "You were right to be concerned about the detention center," Delaney said.

"They're gone, aren't they?" Geordi asked, wearing the same grim expression that was now contagious. 

"Riker is gone. Leyton is dead. The remainder of the prisoners -- there were three others locked up for misdemeanors awaiting court-martial -- are still there." Delaney sighed, crossing his arms. "I thought also about the Changeling we already had, locked up in the lab at Starfleet Medical. Security I sent to check on it reported that the lab was compromised -- the stasis unit the Changeling was in had been opened and left deactivated."

Now everyone was standing around the room looking at each other wearily. It was, Deanna realized after a glance at the readout on the replicator, almost midnight. She closed her eyes for a moment and tried not to feel as despairing -- it was hard, with the continued ongoing fear of a planet covered with people sitting in the dark, and the general hopelessness of her co-anti-conspirators in the face of the escape of someone they knew to be involved. 

And then the lights came up. 

"Finally," Elena exclaimed. "Charles, I'll be in my office. Marius, would you see that our guests are transported directly to their respective homes, so they can lock themselves in and get some sleep?"

"Absolutely." Beaumont gestured at the door. 

The transporter left them outside the front door of their apartment -- Jean-Luc went in first, and was thus first to be tackled by an anxious Klingon child. Wes was also relieved to see them. They both looked exhausted. Deanna thanked Wes and he ran out to go downstairs to see his mother, who had beamed home before them. 

"We couldn't get out," Alexander shouted. "I wanted to come save you, Mom!"

Deanna held him tightly and rocked a little. "I know, but I really didn't need saving. It was better you were here -- that way we knew you would keep out intruders. You need to get to bed, all right?"

It took sitting with him for a bit to get him settled enough to actually sleep. And then she was almost falling down with weariness, heading into the bedroom to join Jean-Luc. 

She didn't remember falling asleep, the following morning. She came awake all at once though -- a familiar presence was nearby. It was seven hundred; they had no time for their usual run in the park, and barely enough time to get them all ready and off to school and work, so she said nothing and hurried through showering and dressing. Alexander was a little groggy but ready to go when she emerged from the bedroom. 

"I can be ready in five minutes," Jean-Luc said, still in his robe. He'd awakened while she was putting on the uniform.

"No need. Get ready and come to Command -- I think we'll have something we can do this morning," she said cryptically, guiding Alexander out the door with a hand on his shoulder. 

She got a better idea of where Will Riker was as she walked Alexander to school. She left the school and hurried north on the sidewalk, not because it was the way to her office but because she knew Riker was following her. Reaching a public transporter at the intersection, she gave a retinal scan and beamed away to Command, hurrying for the fleet admiral's office with barely a look at the attendant she usually smiled at.

There were four armed officers outside, but they had been briefed -- they let her go in without a word. Delaney stood in the outer office with Elena. Both were in rumpled uniforms and looked tired.

"Will Riker was following me this morning," she said. It was something she didn't care about revealing -- she was sure anyone eavesdropping would know why she would be anxious about that. "Jean-Luc is on his way."

"We've restored power worldwide -- please clear my schedule, I'm having a meeting of the chiefs of staff this morning and then we're meeting with all the department heads to begin the long debriefing after the incident. You'll be busy with messages I'm sure -- please be sure only the most critical are forwarded to me, I'll get back to all the others later. Possibly next week. The aftermath of an event like this will take time to get through. Let me know the instant you hear from the President of the Federation -- the Commander in Chief and I will need to meet with him as soon as possible." Elena turned to enter her office. Delaney gave her a sympathetic look and followed the fleet admiral.

Deanna sat down and closed her eyes. Jean-Luc was on his way, concerned because he was aware of how anxious she'd been since taking Alexander to school. Riker was close but not at Command, she suspected. Lurking and waiting. 

"Computer, a bowl of oatmeal," she said, turning to the replicator. Something bland to eat while she went through messages materialized in the replicator behind her. 


	57. When Vacation is a Four Letter Word

"Good morning," Deanna said as a tall dark-skinned man in a captain's uniform entered her office. "Do you have an appointment?"

Then a second man, only not a man, entered the office -- a study in beige and brown, with a half-formed face. She hadn't sensed him coming. It could only be Odo. And Jean-Luc rose from the chair he'd set in front of her desk, set aside the padd, went to shake Sisko's hand.

"I was sorry to hear about the Enterprise," Sisko said.

"There will be another, soon," Jean-Luc said with a benign smile. "You're here to see the fleet admiral?"

"I was asked to come to Earth by Admiral Leyton, however, he doesn't appear to be in his office, nor is his adjutant."

Deanna smiled at them. "I'm sorry, Captain Sisko, but Admiral Leyton is dead. Most of the flag officers are scrambling to regain order, after the blackout last night and the fleet admiral is currently with the Commander in Chief and the Federation President. If you would like to sit and wait, I can replicate coffee."

That brought both men to a standstill. Sisko gazed at her soberly. "How did Admiral Leyton die?"

"I think that may be best left to Admiral Nechayev to explain," Jean-Luc said. "I think I'll have some of that coffee, if you don't mind, Deanna."

Deanna asked the replicator for it just the way he liked it, and turned from the replicator to hand it across her desk. "Captain Sisko?"

"Raktajino, if you don't mind."

"Would you like anything, Mr. Odo?" She turned to hand across the requested drink to Sisko.

"No. Thank you," the Changeling said gruffly, putting his hands behind his back. He gave her a curious look.

"My mother, if she knew you were here, would expect me to pass along her greetings," Deanna said, picking up a cup of tea she'd requested for herself and returning to her chair.

"Your mother," Odo exclaimed. "Do you mean Ambassador Troi?"

"I'm sorry -- this is Commander Troi," Jean-Luc exclaimed. "Heir to the Sacred Chalice -- "

"No, that's holder of the Sacred Chalice of Rixx. Heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed. And that's my mother -- thank goodness, I'd have lost them in the destruction of the ship. Not that I care much for the musty old pot and that tarnished old wind chime in the first place."

"That sounds like something a child might say to taunt their parent," Sisko said. He suppressed an amused smile, somewhat.

Deanna gave that a puckish grin. "Except this child can sense that her mother doesn't take them very seriously either, really. I suppose it gives her something to brag about other than me. I understand you have a son?"

"Yes. He's with my father, in New Orleans. Which is a very good thing, I think, given the state of affairs here. I was informed there were Changelings infiltrating Command?"

"There have been two attempts on the fleet admiral, by two Changelings. I understand there are suspicions but have not heard any confirmed reports of others." Deanna looked up at the door just seconds before it opened. "Good morning, Admiral."

"Good morning," Admiral Beaumont exclaimed. "I take it from the crowd that she isn't in?" He glanced at the three people sitting in chairs along the wall in front of her desk.

"This is Mr. Odo, Captain Sisko, and Captain Picard -- Vice Admiral Beaumont is in charge of internal affairs," she explained. "But he is frequently mistaken for his brother, Admiral Beaumont, who is the director of Starfleet Intelligence."

Darius Beaumont chuckled at her. "Can't fool a Betazoid," he exclaimed, winking. Unlike his brother, or so many of the other admirals, he would chat with her a little when he had occasion to talk to the fleet admiral. She thought of him as 'the flirty twin.'

"Your rank insignia also gives it away, you know. Would you like to wait as well? I could get another chair."

"As tempting as that is, I know you're married, and I have plenty of fish to fry -- let Nechayev know I'm back in my office and I have a report for her regarding the blackout and the demise of Leyton." Beaumont spun on a heel and departed with a spring in his step. Deanna glanced at her monitors looking for some clue as to her supervisor's whereabouts -- sometimes Elena sent a brief message between meetings -- and noticed Jean-Luc frowning at her.

"Something wrong?"

Jean-Luc was more intent on making mischief than he was annoyed, but he looked convincingly peeved, with his crossed arms. "You seem to be making a lot of friends here."

"I make friends everywhere I go, that's my heritage -- weren't we just talking about my mother? And well, I could have sworn I saw you at my wedding. Then there is this matter of being pregnant to consider."

Sisko and Odo were staring at him now. "So that would be why you're here," Odo said with an amused smirk.

"I'm just waiting for my next assignment, or the birth of my son, whichever comes first," Jean-Luc said with convincingly bored tone of voice.

"You're waiting for the stalker who's been looking for me to show up," Deanna exclaimed. "But he's not anywhere at Command, right now."

"I see I'll have to stop asking the operations manager for sensor readings," he shot back with a mercenary grin.

"Stop being silly, there's an admiral coming. Three, in fact." Deanna spun in her chair, addressing the replicator and ignoring the looks from their guests. She stood with the tray containing coffee and pastry to greet the fleet admiral with a professional smile, following her into Elena's office to place the refreshments on the table as both Beaumonts and Delaney came in behind them.

"Captain Sisko is here as well, he was unaware of Admiral Leyton's... situation, and is awaiting orders, sir," she said as she headed back out.

"I'll let you know when to send him in, Commander," Elena said. "Thank you."

 She returned to her desk as the door closed behind her. "I suppose you'll have to wait for a while longer. At least we have Captain Comedian to keep us company."

Jean-Luc's brow wrinkled. "You'd better be careful, your mother's showing."

 Sisko started to chuckle. "Marriage," he murmured.

"Oh, no, she started this attitude well before that. The problem of letting one of her kind get too close."

Deanna wished she had something to pitch at him other than a monitor or the vase of roses on the corner of her desk. "Yes, women are known far and wide for being able to take men down a few pegs."

Now he was a bit alarmed -- he turned on a little outrage, to cover it. "You need to be careful, I know -- "

" -- where I sleep," she interjected smoothly. "And you follow me to work, and then you appear to show up whenever I eat as well. And I'm still in one piece. How peculiar."

"I'd heard somewhere that he likes to pick officers who can outsmart him," Sisko muttered to Odo. "That seems to backfire easily."

"Oh, now, don't pout," Deanna chided, softening it with a fond smile. 

"I'm not pouting, I'm plotting," Jean-Luc shot back, sounding like he was pouting. 

Deanna noticed a new message pop up on her third screen. "The admiral would like to see you now, Captain Sisko."

The other captain went into the inner office, leaving Odo to wait, and the shape shifter continued to observe without directly looking at them.

"It strikes me that the two of you have plenty in common," Deanna said. "You both like puzzles and working out mysteries."

Jean-Luc glanced at Odo. He wasn't convinced.

"Constable Odo has a knack for detective work -- he would probably get along with Dickman Hill well enough," she added.

"Dickman...." 

"Dixon," Jean-Luc repeated, giving Deanna a brief scolding look. "An old detective novel series -- there's a holodeck version of it."

At least it started a conversation, however awkward, between the two of them. Before long they were discussing the Dominion and defense of the wormhole. Deanna sorted and deleted messages while they talked. At some point the door opened, and out came Admiral Beaumont the lesser. He winked at Deanna and went out the door. 

Delaney emerged about ten minutes later. He paused to jerk his thumb at the door behind him, and Deanna went in as he exited. Elena, Marius Beaumont, and Captain Sisko were the only ones left. The dampening field was active; the cylindrical device sat in the middle of the table, the blue glow around the top indicating that it was on. Elena gestured at a chair next to her.

"Deanna, I'd like for you to describe to the captain how you are able to discern a shape shifter from the humanoid it's imitating."

"I understand that you're actually an empath," Sisko said, holding up a hand as if to placate her, despite the fact that she'd simply glanced at him and not begun to protest. "That it has something to do with that."

"Something, but more to do with the biology of the Founders. I can't sense their emotions because the mechanism by which they feel them is incompatible. So are Ferengi, and Dopterans, any species with a neurological system that operates so differently that the signals are incomprehensible to me. Or any other Betazoid. Your friend, Odo, is to me like a hologram. I know he's a person with feelings, but I can't read them."

"Is it possible for some humans to mask his feelings to the point that you couldn't detect them?"

This was an interesting tangent for Elena. "No. Think about a ship trying to hide by shutting down the engines. There is a small amount of energy present just the same. I can tell when someone is present even if they are unconscious. When you're awake, you give off emotion even if you don't know it yourself -- humans are good at ignoring their own feelings."

"Even if someone is dissociating?" Beaumont asked.

Deanna stared at him. "Why would you bring that up?"

"Because there is a technique -- a hypothetical one, that involves using dissociation as a -- is something wrong?"

It was a little too much for her -- she put her palms to her temples and thought about it for a long, silent moment. "Beverly found an article. She shouldn't have been able to find it. Someone had to plant it for her to find."

Sisko was now thoroughly confused. Beaumont scowled. "Article?"

"An article on engramatic dissociation. You're obviously familiar with the subject. Has it ever been used?"

He went tight-lipped. "Not to my knowledge. It's been talked about."

"I've worked with patients who dissociated. But what you're talking about isn't the kind of dissociating that someone with a trauma incurred yesterday experiences. Total disassociation, blocking out all of a person to put a secondary personality in place, that's not simple -- it doesn't happen in the Federation, we don't systematically torture children that way."

Beaumont's brittle smile wasn't reassuring. He felt the sort of twisted humor she'd encountered so many times before. "Absolutely not. The process is induced with a device similar to that which is used in the kind of memory wipe that's usually put to use in accidental first contacts."

Deanna looked away, rather than glare at an admiral. Again, the thought of Beverly finding that article came to mind -- she was certain now that it hadn't been accidental. She had to get home and listen to that message from Kate. Beaumont was talking as though this had been done already.

"Deanna," Elena said, and both men turned to stare at the fleet admiral, who was sounding nothing like the Admiral Nechayev who would hand down orders with stern, cold eyes.

"Do you realize, that if they are doing this already, you could be giving orders you don't remember giving, to people you don't remember talking to?" Deanna faced the admiral soberly. "This is worse than the Borg. You can see a Borg, before it assimilates you."

Elena sighed. "Well, I had hoped that you would be able to help us to that end."

"Not as much as you want. As soon as your aide gets back, I intend to sleep for a few weeks. At least as much as this little boy will let me." She put a hand on the pleated front of the maternity uniform.

"I was thinking there must be others who are empathic, who could do the same. Marius here is himself at least half Haliian."

"Although not so gifted as I would wish," he added. "I can tell you're upset more quickly by looking at your face."

"I'm afraid I have one of those faces -- poker has been most challenging," Deanna said. "I don't know if I have ever met anyone with this condition, this engramatic disassociation, but I may be able to find one."

"I can help you."

Deanna stared at Marius. "You know someone who has had this done to them."

"I think I do. I'm not certain whether or not it's true. But I'd like to find out if you can sense anything different about him. His behavior is suspect, some of the time, but not so out of bounds that it could be officially questioned."

"You've met Admiral Ross, actually," Elena said.

Deanna looked from one face to the other, and sank a little in her chair. "You want me to go to Deep Space Nine."

"You did say you were planning a vacation," Elena said with a smile. Sisko looked at the fleet admiral again with disbelief.

"Only if I can talk my husband into it. And we'll have to be sure security keeps an eye on our foster son."

"Would it help if I sent my dashing younger brother along with you?" Marius asked with a twinkle in his eye.

"Talk to Jean-Luc, and your friends," Elena said. "Whoever goes, we'll send them back with Captain Sisko and Constable Odo. You all have until Monday to get ready to go. If Ross has been compromised -- there are a lot of lives on the line, he's been put in command of operations in that sector."

Deanna huffed, shaking her head. "I keep finding commanding officers who make life interesting."

"And here I've been thinking all this drama was brought into my life by you," Elena exclaimed with a fond smile.

Deanna raised her eyebrows. "Oh, you'll get used to it. If you're within a parsec of Jean-Luc you'll find Q in your coffee and spatial anomalies in the bathtub."

Beaumont's booming laugh startled her. Sisko was chuckling as well -- she'd forgotten about him.

"I need more coffee," Elena said, shoving her empty mug at Deanna. "Thank you, Deanna."

 

 


	58. New Recruit, Same Old Story

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the buttons available to me are preview, and post without preview. I frequently hit the second one instead of preview, posting instead of saving the document. which is why sometimes I end up with a much shorter chapter than intended, resulting in more chapters than expected....
> 
> I have promised myself to cover more ground in this chapter.
> 
> Episode referenced is Night Terrors, in which we don't find out why other crew with not-human brain structure were not affected differently, but Troi could sleep and communicate with the aliens through a comatose Betazoid.

It was different.

Deanna stared at the overhead viewports when she wasn't busy -- and since they were not crew, they were passengers, she was only busy if she made herself so -- and watched stars at warp.

The door opened, and she knew it was Jean-Luc. He came up behind her and put his arms around her. She leaned, and they swayed. The chatter and the teasing had all fallen away once they were left there in the quarters they would have for the time it took to get to the Bajor sector.

"Ben said he'd expect us for dinner," Jean-Luc said quietly into her hair.

"I'm not sure I'll be able to eat, but that will be nice."

His hands joined hers, against her belly. "I'm sorry you're not feeling well. I suppose that doesn't bode well -- nonstop nausea the instant we leave spacedock at warp."

"It's strange being in space again. It's been so long... I keep feeling that I'm missing appointments, or that I should be going to the bridge. And then I start to worry about Alexander."

"He has Beverly and Mike, and Wes, and his grandparents -- he'll be fine."

Rationally, she knew that. She knew that Elena had assigned a number of security officers to provide for the safety of her foster son, and those of the anti-conspiracy task force who were left behind, as they hadn't been able to catch up with Will Riker since his escape. And it didn't matter. She wasn't there, so she felt anxious.

It didn't help that the longer she was pregnant, the further into this anti-conspiracy project they were, the more anxious about having the baby she became -- she'd begun to have vivid dreams more often. There had been a few in the past couple of months, but they'd ramped up around the second week of her fifth month, and now as she edged into month six, she had at least one crazy dream each night. She knew what it was. She'd had new mothers appear in her office in hysterics, before, frightened that dreams of dropping the baby, tripping and sending the baby flying through a force field, or just seeing the baby fall to pieces in her arms -- no matter how ridiculous it sounded the mother would have fears that it meant something, be it 'I'll be a horrible mother' or 'I will literally drop my child into space without intending to' and there was little to do other than to coach her to take deep breaths, slow down racing panicked thoughts, re-think them, even if they had to resort to pulling up actual numbers on how many babies had been dropped into warp cores lately.

Historically, the number was actually zero. There had, in all the history of Starfleet, not to mention the history of every constituent Federation member world's own fleets, and any other fleet for which there were records accessible, never been a single reported case of dropping an infant into a warp core, an artificial singularity, or even on a deck plate in sickbay.

Deanna thus felt quite helplessly stupid when she awakened in a panic, following a dream about tripping and watching her screaming baby fly end over end into the glowing, sparkling chaos of matter and anti-matter reacting.

Especially when she knew well enough that it wasn't even physically possible to get so close to the warp reactor that it might happen -- she would have had to get past the engineering crew, the sealed bulkheads, the force fields and all manner of hatches and ladders to make that happen. And, she was reasonably certain when awake that she would never ever in a thousand years store baby clothes in such a way to make it necessary. But the dreams persisted.

"Deanna?"

"Nothing," she murmured automatically. Then she sensed the rise in his anxiety, and recognized that she'd responded incorrectly to something she hadn't really heard.

"Deanna," he repeated, now insisting she explain, rather than asking whatever he'd asked. His hands remained where they were against the sides of her belly.

"I'm just thinking."

"About?"

"The nature of anxiety."

"All right, Counselor, but I wasn't asking you."

Deanna winced, and smiled, and her stomach made an audible rumbling noise. "I'm sorry. It's just... it's very common for mothers to have very vivid dreams during pregnancy."

"That would explain why spooning with you is requiring shin guards, but not why you're half a galaxy away, while I'm offering you chocolate."

"I was thinking about how silly I feel, and how pointless it is for me to feel silly, knowing that dreams are so far from reality. But I keep waking up at night in a panic after dreaming about throwing the baby into the warp core."

She'd been so far gone into her frustration about the dreams that they weren't so connected as was often the case, so when he felt amusement she wasn't surprised. He could be amused at her irrational anxiety. She knew if he understood how she felt, he'd be more concerned than amused. But she said nothing and stepped away from him and sat on the sofa, arranging the skirt of her loose blue and white dress as she did so, and her stomach complained a little more.

"Would you like something to eat?" He went across the room to the opposite wall, to ask the replicator for a cup of hot tea.

"Some crackers. A little ginger tea might help."

He brought the requested items and watched her nibble listlessly. "Are you sure you don't want to visit sickbay?"

"They'll tell me to eat crackers."

"Why do you think you're dreaming about throwing the baby into a warp engine? Especially when we haven't been near one until we boarded the _Bellerophon_ this morning."

Perhaps he wasn't as smart about all of this as she'd assumed. She distinctly remembered telling him repeatedly that anxiety made his brain leap to irrational conclusions, back when he'd needed Counselor Troi's gentle but assertive nudges toward sanity. Anxiety was anxiety -- although, perhaps expecting a non-psychologist to realize that was unrealistic.

"Perhaps there is something evolutionary in the hormones of pregnancy -- a throwback to when mothers had to defend their babies against all the predators, and falling rocks, and cliffs, and keep them from falling out of the trees they had to climb to escape the marauding rapists from rival tribes."

Jean-Luc stared at her in horror.

"I might just be too hormonal to think straight," she said, successfully keeping herself from smiling at his shock. "That's the usual theory."

"You didn't sound traumatized by what Will tried to do. I thought, when you said -- "

"No, no, Jean-Luc -- it wasn't that at all. I was thinking about human history."

Now he sipped tea and gave a frustrated little 'harumph' that she was pointing a finger at his heritage instead of hers.

"Betazoid history is very different. I struggled with Standard, you know, because it's based in English, which is based in so many other human languages -- all of it is rooted very deeply in historic gender roles. It used to be that the more feminine traits -- by human standards, mind -- were less valued by men. Betazoids have no such expectations and it shows in our history. We weren't subjected to such harsh conditions in the early evolutionary scheme of things."

"I hadn't thought about that -- in fact, I suppose it wouldn't hurt for me to learn more about Betazoids in general, so I can feel more intelligent in conversing upon this subject."

Deanna mock-frowned at him. "Why, Jean-Luc, I thought you already had done so. So you're saying you don't know that I will be changing gender after the baby is born?"

It caught him off guard, and she thought she might have pulled it off -- phrasing it as a question had offset the advantage he had, now that they were connected and aware of each other again. He couldn't tell if she was serious or not. She intended to follow up with a smile and another tease, but the chime shattered the quiet. "Come," he called out, actually relieved to have the interruption.

Kate Pulaski came in. "I wanted to ask if you had a moment to have an actual conversation. I hope I'm not interrupting."

The addition of Kate to the group heading for Deep Space 9 had been last minute, and had come as a result of Deanna finally listening to the message from her, going to meet her at a coffee shop, and finding that she had been hiding -- walked out of the clinic and not gone back. The day before their departure, a meeting with all parties concerned had included her. It turned out that the conspiracy itself had done the work of convincing Kate that she needed to take a side and be done with it -- they'd finally asked her to do something she couldn't bring herself to do. They'd asked her to lie, as a doctor, about the cause of death -- she'd discovered that Leyton had been killed by a heart attack induced by medication, and while it would have been easy for _them_ to alter the computer records, her verbal report to the admirals asking the questions had to agree with them, for a complete cover-up.

And since she already suspected strongly that Picard and company were already working on fighting against the conspiracy, thanks to Deanna's contact with her, she'd appealed to them for help. Bringing with her a long litany of things she had been forced to do, over the years.

Jean-Luc begrudgingly instructed her to have a seat, offered her something to drink, glanced at Deanna as if to ask her for help -- Deanna nibbled a cracker and stopped short of rolling her eyes. Not having a command structure in place still tripped him up. It was as though seeing someone who used to be crew set him on edge -- especially when he himself was out of uniform. He wore a shirt that he had learned she found appealing, something loose and comfortable, as they had expected to be lounging in quarters and not visiting with guests.

It wasn't lost on Kate. She was smiling, but looking at them with a little disbelief. More than a little, Deanna sensed.

"So what did you want to talk to us about?" she asked, hoping to move them past discomfort.

"Well, first of all, I wanted to congratulate you," she exclaimed, gesturing at Deanna's obvious baby bulge. "Twice over -- married, and pregnant."

"Thank you. It's been a very rewarding experience so far."

"She says, as she eats a cracker instead of real food," Jean-Luc commented. It elicited an amused snort from Kate.

"As pregnancy symptoms go, that one's fairly innocuous, you know. As long as you're eating enough in general." Again, a dubious look.

"It's interesting," Deanna commented. "You look at us with such disbelief, for doing a very normal thing, as if it's so surprising to have a baby. When it's riding in a starship that's so incredibly odd. Ninety percent of humanity has never been aboard one. Yet for thousands of years, they've been having babies."

Kate started to laugh -- she even put her hand to her cheek. A little embarrassed at being called out for it. "You know what's unusual here is that -- you wouldn't have done that, before."

"You mean defending my family?"

"It's not -- I'm just surprised, and happy for you."

"You're amused. The issue is that you haven't spent time with us, so haven't known how much everyone's changed. It's been almost five years since you left the _Enterprise_ ," Deanna said. She turned a subdued smile on Jean-Luc. "Although I think the past year all by itself has seen plenty of changes of a different sort."

"It's certainly been very educational." Jean-Luc turned serious, all of a sudden, his eyes losing focus as he sipped tea again. "I still miss Worf. And now that I'm past being furious and outraged, I've started to miss Will. Or at least the version of him that I knew as a friend -- I suppose that my old counselor might tell me that people aren't black and white, that he could be a criminal and still be a friend."

Deanna turned a chiding look on him. "As if he was the only friendly criminal you've ever known."

It was enough to set his jaw and momentarily put an angry spark in his eye. But he smirked at it, and touched her bare arm -- she smiled fondly, remembering their time at the resort on Lavonia, and so he did too. It felt like years ago, now. So much had happened. It was as it always had been -- shocking things would happen, they would move on from it, to the next shocking thing, or the next overwhelming experience. Being in Starfleet was a life of extremes.

"Will never had any secondary assignments while he was aboard," Kate said. "They like to avoid you, you know."

"Of course they do." Jean-Luc glanced at Deanna with a smile. She sighed. He thought Kate was referring to her.

"She means you, not me. You have a fairly good track record for finding evidence that leads to the truth of things, after all."

"But you often put us on track to find that evidence. You knew who the Changelings were."

Kate looked at the floor. She wasn't in uniform, either, but she wore a severe gray pant suit with squared shoulders that was reminiscent of one. "Sometimes I wish I'd stayed aboard."

"But they were pressuring you, and so you went," Deanna guessed.

Kate stared at her solemnly. "Do you know, it wasn't at all what it is for me now? The first time they contacted me, it wasn't marketed to me as an illicit, off-the-books mission. It was just an order. And afterward, I found out that it wasn't a sanctioned activity, and I would be at risk of imprisonment if it became common knowledge. And it began from there. They had something to destroy me with. By the time I joined you on the _Enterprise_ it was far too late for me to refuse them, if they asked me to do something."

"Yes, I imagine it goes that way often," Jean-Luc said softly. "I've seen good officers fall, for no reason other than failure to notice that they were being deceived. I'm sure it happens to some and they never manage to recognize it. Although it's difficult for me to imagine how all the officers Leyton was placing in position could have failed to question what he was doing. It sounded as though he was calling forth officers he'd worked with more than a decade ago."

"I liked James Leyton," Kate said wistfully. "I really thought he was one of the good ones. He wasn't one of _them,_ so far as I could tell."

"But he was on the verge of staging a coup," Deanna said. "That power outage was his doing. The worldwide loss of all power caused extreme panic -- it was intended to create a situation, on the heels of the news that a Founder was captured on Earth, in which he would be able to declare martial law. He'd been making statements to other admirals, and more subtle statements to the media, that more needed to be done, and the chiefs of staff weren't doing enough. And then another Founder took advantage of the outage as well, tried to get to the fleet admiral. And then _they_ were able to break into the brig, and take Will with them -- we can suppose that _they_ were also responsible for Leyton's death."

"There's an awful lot going on at Command, isn't there?" Kate had a rueful smile. "I asked for the transfer to the clinic because I was tired of doing more politicking than doctoring. Scuttlebutt has it you're going to be offered the next iteration of the _Enterprise_ , one of the new models, a Borg-busting Sovereign class. I've been wondering if you intend to take it."

Deanna turned to look at Jean-Luc, as it was obvious who she was speaking to, and he was already looking at her. At her belly, actually. "I don't know."

"It would almost be a crime if you didn't. We definitely need good captains right now -- more than ever. The things I hear about the Dominion...."

"I wouldn't trust what you hear, if it's not coming from legitimate intelligence -- Leyton was whipping up hysteria for his own ends, I wouldn't put it past _them_ to do the same," Deanna exclaimed. "I know _they_ have agents in the Maquis, driving them to terrorist acts. I have to wonder if they aren't driving conflict with the Klingons and the Romulans to their own ends, as well."

"You were at Command, and I know you can't tell me everything you heard there," Jean-Luc said. "But that sounds -- "

"Are you all right, Deanna?" Kate broke in, leaning forward a little. Reacting to her facial expression, probably.

"I'm just finding it very disturbing and distasteful, as a counselor. Any relationship, between two people or two groups, or two species, that is manipulative and deceptive in nature, it's dysfunctional. It's wrong." Deanna bristled a little at Jean-Luc's amusement, but it was tempered by affection.

"Apparently there are plenty of people who disagree." Jean-Luc set aside his tea cup. "It's too bad you can't change _their_ minds."

Kate suddenly grinned at them. "Well, you might be able to change enough minds. You seem to have some friends in high places."

"That's only if this engramatic dissociation you were warning us about isn't in play," Jean-Luc said. "In those cases one would have to convince two people."

It was enough to completely change Kate's demeanor, from smiling to sober. And shame, Deanna realized with surprise.

"Kate, what is it?"

"I didn't bring this up in your meeting yesterday, because I felt it prudent to talk to you first. And then I'd expect we would talk to...." Kate held her hands to her face as if praying for a few seconds. "There's no way other than to just tell you, and I want to preface this by saying I really wish it had been possible for me to do something about it, but I didn't start it."

Deanna felt her own lips start to curl, in frustrated disgust. "You're going to tell me that Beverly Crusher is a victim of your engramatic dissociation project. You weren't just visiting the program you were working on. You were monitoring an experiment. You flagged that article to her attention specifically, you showed up often enough to make her suspect and then she quit the project out of fear."

Kate put up her hands as if in defense -- Jean-Luc actually started to get up, but settled again quickly as he set aside the fury, turning it down to a simmer with a magnificent feat of self control so he could hear the rest of what she had to say. "Yes, and no," Kate said, with a great sigh of relief. "She isn't what anyone could call an unqualified success. I was ordered to create the barrier in her mind. It's turned out that she's not the best of candidates, and all I really did was manage to make her forget sessions with me. Apparently not forget completely, if she was so anxious that she quit a project solely because I kept showing up there. It was how I connected with her -- stuck around until the end of her shift and walked her out. And yes, at the last session I planted a suggestion for her to look into memory erasure and flagged the article. Because I'm tired of it all. I don't want to keep being a puppet."

"You were already planning to take the step across the line," Jean-Luc half-asked, suspiciously. He glanced at Deanna.

"She's telling the whole truth," Deanna said. "Finally. Did you get anything from Beverly that you passed along to _them,_ Kate?"

"I told my operative the truth, that she was a bad subject. It was apparently decided, by whoever he deals with that decides things, that I should start to work on you -- so I had to tell them that your brain structure is sufficiently different that I doubted it would even work. Your paracortex is fairly robust and Betazoids don't dissociate. Things that traumatize you are handled differently -- I told them, after some study of typical Betazoid brain function, that it would be impossible to create the barrier. Enough trauma and it would simply overload the neural network, cause permanent brain damage, and put the subject into a coma."

It wasn't completely true, as Betazoids could dissociate; they simply didn't do so completely, as humans could. But no need to point that out. Deanna thought about Andrus Hagan, the Betazoid scientist they had found on a ship full of dead officers. "You're correct. We've seen that happen before. The _Brittain_ ," she said, giving Jean-Luc the reference point.

"Yes. That's right -- he was in a catatonic state when we found him. The aliens were communicating through him. You and Data saved us all."

Deanna gave him a smile to mirror his, and turned back to Kate. "So they told you then to use Geordi? Or perhaps Mike, or one of the junior officers?"

"I haven't spoken to anyone since that last conversation -- I'd guess they wanted a mole on the _Enterprise_ , probably because it's the flagship and they're anticipating its involvement in things related to the Dominion."

"More likely they want a mole on the away teams. They'll choose Geordi or Mike. Because it's logical that you'll keep Data, for first officer, and he doesn't dissociate either," Deanna said, changing position as her lower back started to hurt and the baby started to kick again. "And you can't brainwash an android."

"But you can change his programming -- I'm glad he postponed his visit to see Maddox," Jean-Luc said.

"Why would you assume that it's about the away teams?" Kate asked.

Jean-Luc exchanged a wary look with Deanna. "All Starfleet computers should be considered suspect," Deanna said. "Data isolated the subroutine that does it -- _they_ passively monitor via the computer systems for keywords that trigger recording and transmitting. We're only talking freely right now with you because we know Geordi and Data already released our countermeasures into the computer system of the _Bellerophon_ \-- it's been one of our testing sites."

"You're telling me that all this time -- " Kate looked nauseated at the thought. "They probably know I've decided to defect. They probably knew several weeks ago."

"Kate, are you the only one working on engramatic dissociation? Has it ever been successful?" Deanna asked.

"As far as I know, I've been the only one. It's not been a very successful project. Of course, that could be partially my reluctance to actually do much."

"Have you attempted to do it to anyone else?" Kate didn't know the nature of their errand; she knew Beaumont was going to Deep Space Nine, and that Jean-Luc intended to take Deanna on a nice long retreat to a hot spring resort on Bajor. Meeting with Admiral Ross had been kept out of the conversation at the meeting.

"Not successfully." It was the truth, at least. It didn't rule out the success of others, but it was somewhat reassuring.

Jean-Luc glanced at Deanna again, as she brought a hand to her abdomen. She wondered if he could tell when the baby started to kick, which happened more frequently -- sometimes quite a bit harder than she had expected. "You're sure there isn't anything they can do about it?" he murmured.

"The nausea, or the ligament pain, or the ongoing -- well, there we go, the call of the bladder. I'll be right back." She left the couch and hurried through to the bathroom.

When she returned, Kate was grinning maniacally as she had when teasing someone mercilessly, and Jean-Luc was frustrated and embarrassed. "I think I want to name him after my uncle," Deanna said, as she returned to her place at Jean-Luc's side. The sleeveless house dress was comfortable, but the straight lines of it made her belly look bigger than it was.

"Which one?" he asked,

"The one who was like a father to me. His name was Dim."

Kate snorted. "Deanna," she scoffed.

Deanna frowned at her. "It was - short for Dimwanaralathan, which is a perfectly respectable name."

"If we simply use all the names we've come up with in the past couple of months, he'll be able to use a different name each day of the month," Jean-Luc exclaimed.

"Mother tried that once. She kept everyone on their toes for a long time. I think she lasted two months."

"You're not going to simply name him after his father?" Kate asked.

Jean-Luc's wonderful look of disdain made Deanna smile. He noticed, and responded in kind.

Kate sighed, and sank back in the easy chair, letting her arms fall in her lap. She kept grinning, and looking horribly amused. "You have to be one of the cutest couples I've ever met. Oh, don't go defensive on me, Jean-Luc," she exclaimed. "It's not a bad thing."

"Kate, honestly," Deanna exclaimed, almost as exasperated as Jean-Luc by that. She didn't like how much it amused the doctor. "I've never been cute in my life."

It was exactly what was needed to do away with Jean-Luc's stiff indignation and discomfort -- he refocused on her statement, distracted by consideration of whether or not she was being hard on herself.

"Never?"

"There's a reason you haven't seen my mother flashing around my baby pictures, as she used to do so often," Deanna said. "I made her promise to never do it again."

Kate radiated disbelief. Jean-Luc wavered. "Why?' he asked, refusing to make the assumption.

"I wasn't a pretty baby."

That led to no small amount of defensiveness on her behalf, but he said nothing. Kate sighed. "I doubt that," she murmured.

"If I'm going to be any good at dinner I should take a nap," Deanna said, feeling more short-tempered than tired but going with the more polite option.

"Then I shall leave you to do that," Kate said, feeling a moment of regret as she got up. "See you later."

In the time it took her to leave, Jean-Luc kept thinking, and after the door closed he moved closer, putting his arms around her. He wanted her to be happy; he appreciated what she'd done, leaving her to sigh and lean on his shoulder.

"You did that to shut down the commentary," he said.

"I did it because I'm tired of being looked at as if we're some sort of oddity," she exclaimed.

He pulled away and looked at her, questioningly. "Some chocolate?"

Deanna fiddled with the ends of her hair, which she'd left hanging loose over her shoulders. "Actually...."

"Pretzels? Some red curry?"

"I really want a steak, with some of that spicy barbecue sauce."

"And?"

"A big bowl of -- "

" -- spicy bamboo," he finished with her. "With the pork, and the hot red chili sauce."

"Yes, that," she said. He was on his way to the replicator as she spoke. "And Tom Kha Gai, with extra mushrooms."

"It's nice to hear you're feeling better," he said as he brought back a loaded tray. Placing it on the coffee table, he sat down in the easy chair that Kate had vacated, facing her.

"My appetite just came back all of a sudden."

"Deanna, you don't have to intervene that way, you know."

She glanced at him, as she ate some of the bamboo. "Intervene?"

"Redirecting conversation when I feel discomfort?"

Deanna took another bite -- her stomach growled. "She doesn't get to tease you. That's my job, now."

He raised both eyebrows at that. "Job?"

"I am not cute," she exclaimed.

"I agree. Deanna, what you said earlier, about gender changes... I know that can't be true."

She cut a piece of the steak and tucked a bite into her mouth. "It can't?" she asked around the mouthful.

"If it were true, your mother would be male, wouldn't she? She's had three children."

"Oh, Jean-Luc, that's only true if she started out as female." It was quite a good steak, and needed to be chased with some of the hot spicy soup.

He contemplated that soberly for the time it took her to finish eating the bamboo. "You have to be joking about this," he concluded, hopefully.

"Would you have a problem if I were male for a while?"

He considered that one for a few mind-churning moments. "How would you have another child to make the switch if you were male?"

"What makes you think male Betazoids can't have babies?"

"Deanna...."

She put the empty bowl on the table and dabbed her lips with the napkin. "All right, I'm sorry. I'll stop now."

A faint smile, at last. "Thank you."

"I think I want chocolate ice cream now."

He brought it back, and sat watching her eat it. "I don't think I'll be able to manage it, Deanna," he said softly. "I don't think I can take another starship. If things are going to be as they are, and the war starts in earnest, I can't take you into it -- and I know I won't be able to leave you behind."

She put the last spoonful in her mouth, and let it melt on her tongue while she gazed at him. "We do have a house waiting for us in France. And a lovely apartment in San Francisco."

He fell into a broody state, thinking about it, and she let him do that, leaving the dishes scattered on the table and curling up on her side on the couch to take a nap. She smiled without opening her eyes, when he draped a blanket over her and kissed her cheek.

"You are beautiful," he whispered, caressing her cheek.

"Wake me early enough to get ready for dinner?"

"Of course."

He did normal well enough now, if they didn't have an audience.


	59. On the Road Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course, I had to re-read, and of course, I found spots in previous chapters where some things are missing or need editing, so editing is needed. Nothing that will change anything radically.

The dinner in Holloway's private dining room on deck two was like many of the dinners Deanna had been to over the years, a collection of guests of the captain of the ship. Such events could be entertaining or opportunities to daydream. This time, it was a little of both.

For the first half of the evening, Jake Sisko was there -- he was clearly a bright and well adjusted boy, with none of the underlying moodiness that Wes had had at that age. Once he understood that he had accepting adults around him, he chattered on and on, about many subjects, including his observations of happenings on Deep Space Nine. His friend Nog was quoted a number of times. When Deanna understood who his teacher was, she asked after Keiko, Molly and Miles. 

Meanwhile, Jean-Luc, sitting on her left hand, talked to Ben Holloway, Ben Sisko, Odo, and Marius Beaumont, mainly about Starfleet. Kate sat quietly and contributed little, until Jake started to talk about a story he was writing.

"I'm trying to make it believable -- I can't get the dialogue right though," Jake exclaimed, gesturing with his hands as he spoke. At his side, across the round table from Deanna, his father's head turned slightly -- Sisko had been tracking his son's conversation throughout the meal. Deanna thought she could understand why; Jake's story was ambitious, for a young man his age. He'd decided to write about a man meeting a woman and falling in love with her, then getting caught up in war. 

"I suppose you've been listening to people talk, trying to learn more, hear how people talk to each other," Kate said, then her fork completed its journey to her mouth. At that, Sisko actually looked at his son -- anxiety on the rise.

"Well, yeah," Jake said, spreading his hands, oblivious to the attention he was getting from his dad. 

"What is it about the dialogue that you are struggling with?" Deanna asked. 

"I'm working on the conversation when they first meet, okay," he began, eager and intent. "They're in this park, see, and then he sees her walking, and he likes how confident she is and how she's got this secretive smile, she's a snappy dresser and pretty, and then there's just something about her, you know. And she's heading toward the park gate so he knows he should say something if he's going to because she's about to leave. And he goes over to her, and says hello, and she hesitates, and I know he has to say something that gets her interested enough to listen instead of just going on her way. Because she's actually on her way back to work, it has to be something good enough, to get them together. But he doesn't know her, he just has a guess, and she's not really looking for anyone, she's got a career -- "

"In what?" Deanna asked.

Jake gave her a lopsided, sheepish grin. "Well, I hadn't really decided that yet. I think she's going to be a lawyer. Because I wanted her to be a really independent sort of person, for the sake of the rest of the storyline. And so I was thinking about careers where people tend to be really driven, or dedicated at least. Like Starfleet but I'd rather not write about that. I don't want Dad to think I'm talking about him."

Deanna smiled at that. "Well, you're not going to escape that, no matter what you do. You write what you know, whether you're doing it consciously or not. So how old are these two people you're trying to matchmake?"

Jake clearly wasn't thinking about that yet. He shrugged a little, thought about it. Kate filled in, "If she's an attorney, that's going to put her in her late twenties at least. You don't finish law school overnight."

"Yeah, about thirty, I guess," Jake said.

"Do you know anyone about that age?" Deanna asked. Around the table smiles started to pop up -- everyone was listening now, instead of talking to each other. Jean-Luc was mildly uncomfortable, somewhat amused, but not anxious. Everyone else was waiting in anticipation, especially Sisko.

"Well, yeah, a few people."

Kate's dimple started to show, as she suppressed a grin down to a firm smile. "It's also important to think about what your guy is expecting, here. It sounds to me, the way you built it up so far, that he's interested in her as a person. So maybe he would avoid cute lines or overt interest, and go with just saying hello?"

"Marius, at thirty," Deanna said with a smile. "What would you do?"

"I was married at thirty. Unless the attorney was my wife, I'd keep walking on," Beaumont said. 

"Don't look at me, I was chasing another pip and ignoring the women in my general vicinity," Holloway said. "Because you don't chat up subordinates like that."

"I was married too, no help here," Sisko exclaimed.

Jean-Luc held up his hands in surrender when Deanna turned to him. "At that age, I was married to my career. I'm with Ben."

"Absent any non-Starfleet examples at present, I'll have to agree with Kate, that simply greeting her would be the most realistic," Deanna said. "Probably the most likely to succeed as well. I can tell you, from the other side of the gender divide, that if you're making the female character very beautiful, she's going to be quite tired of fending off the comments and the attention of others who aren't interested in her as a person."

"D'you think she would be interested in a guy who used humor -- something funny, not insulting?"

"That depends."

Jake thought for a moment, and it was obvious he wasn't coming up with anything. He looked straight across at Deanna and then glanced at Jean-Luc, and she sensed that he braced just as she did for the boy's next question. "How did he get your attention?"

Several guffaws erupted around the table -- the elder Sisko crossed arms, then covered his mouth with a hand to hide the cheesy grin. Jean-Luc sighed quietly and she could sense his quiet ire, as he waited for the answer. It was obvious that whatever they said might just end up in a published story somewhere.

"That's really not going to help you," Deanna said as gently as she could. "We're Starfleet, and you can't call either of us average. For one thing, I'm an empath, and my reaction to anything someone says is skewed somewhat by how I can tell what they are feeling."

She had intended to divert conversation away from Jean-Luc, but hadn't thought about the possible consequences of telling an inquisitive, intelligent, intense boy who was bold enough to keep asking such questions something that shook him out of preconceptions. Jake gaped for a few seconds. "So when you say empath, you mean you can tell how someone feels? I thought Betazoids were all telepathic, that you read thoughts."

"Jake," Sisko said softly, trying to rein in his son. It was a little too late.

"So if someone approached you and you could tell they were really interested in you, and they were too shy to say a word -- what would you do?"

Deanna smiled, cocking her head to the left, thinking about all the varied reactions to her that she'd sensed each time she met someone new. About the way Beaumont's eyes tended to drift down from her face, the attraction Ben felt and ignored -- all the little things people never acknowledged, in general.

"I'd leave them alone," she said. "Perhaps the interest is something they might override with rational thought. Perhaps they are married. People feel many things they never follow up on, and they do many things they do not feel like doing."

"So, even if he was like totally in love with you, and you knew it?" It was, perhaps, a little difficult for such a young man to understand why that wasn't as enticing as it sounded.

"I've ignored strong feelings many times. I do it every day -- I have to. Think about it for a while."

He was, and his father was giving her a dubious look, feeling a little dismay about what was transpiring. 

"Let's say I'm out with friends, and I go into Quark's." She had done that the last time they were at Deep Space Nine, in fact. "I know that four of the men in the room are very interested in me. But I'm having dinner with Kate, and we're talking about the shopping we just did, and what to buy a mutual friend for her birthday, and I don't particularly want to interrupt that. I need to ignore them, so I show no interest."

"Okay, but if you were interested," Jake said insistently, "and you looked at him, and he came over and wanted to say something -- what would get you to ask him to sit down with you?"

Kate rolled her eyes and stuffed the last bite of her pasta in her mouth. Deanna glanced at Jean-Luc -- like the rest of the men, save Odo, he was watching her and waiting for the answer, perhaps with a tiny bit more anticipation than the rest. 

"Well," she began slowly, as if thinking it through. "He would have to not be Quark, for one thing -- "

Sisko snorted at that. "Oh, yes."

"And he would have to be comfortable with children, since I would probably have one with me," Deanna added. "And I would be expecting him to babysit for me, because after I'm done with drinks with my friends, I'll be going to a real restaurant with my husband."

Jake dramatically put his hands on his head and rolled his eyes, and laughed with everyone else -- Odo was chuckling at it as well. 

"No, seriously though," Jake exclaimed as the laughter died away. "I mean, if you weren't married."

 "The part that would determine my response is whether I am living on the station or not," she said. "Because if I am only passing through, I cannot reasonably expect any man I would be interested in to go with me -- the kind of person you take seriously will depend upon your personality. And there are a long list of reasons I would not even begin to consider someone. It would be torture for an empath, to live every day with a very angry person, for example. I would have difficulty accepting a very anxious person, as well. Or a very frightened one."

Jean-Luc was starting to feel pretty smug. She turned to look at him and found that he wore the smirk as well.

"I can live with a certain amount of arrogance, of course," she said mildly. Jean-Luc's smirk turned into a smile.

Sisko started to chuckle again.

"I don't know if any of that was any help," Kate said. "But I think the real answer of what would be best for your story might lie in patience. To convincingly write such a scene, I think you need to have a little more experience under your belt."

"Which was pretty much what I told you, Jake-o," Sisko said, dropping a hand on his son's shoulder. "I think it's time for you to head off to bed anyway."

"All right." Jake got up and looked at Kate, and Deanna. "Thanks for your input."

"I think you should keep writing it," Deanna said. "And then return to it when you're older, to finish it."

"Good night, Jake," Kate said.

They all watched the boy leave the room. "What a smart kid you have," Kate commented.

"He does all right," Sisko said, sounding less proud of his son than he really was. "Once he's focused on what he needs to do."

"A lot of distractions on Deep Space Nine, I'd guess," Marius exclaimed.

"Well, yes. I've had my misgivings about raising him there, but it's actually been going well enough for him. Even if I thought having a Ferengi best friend wasn't a good idea at first, it's actually turned out quite well. And he's doing very well in school when he's applying himself -- despite his current... tangent, I think he'll be a great author someday, if he keeps at it."

Deanna knew Jean-Luc was curious, but not voicing whatever questions he had. She smiled warmly at the commanding officer of Deep Space Nine. "How old is he?"

"Sixteen, going on thirty."

"Old enough and smart enough to find you a date," Odo said, winning a scathing look from his commanding officer, followed by a laugh.

"Yes, well, he's got a knack for finding intelligent women -- I have to give him that," Sisko said. "And he has some smooth moves himself. He writes them poetry."

Deanna turned to Kate with a pretense of innocence. "It occurs to me there is a Terran saying, something about apples and trees?"

More chuckling all the way around. "I think it's time for more wine," Ben Holloway said. He had a couple of bottles not far away on a table -- thoughtfully provided by Jean-Luc, prior to departing from Earth. While he poured and handed out glasses, Beaumont gave Jean-Luc a look.

"Not sure I like that look," Jean-Luc said, accepting a glass from their host.

"The younger Mr. Sisko asks some good questions. He has the makings of a good investigator," Marius said.

"He's very observant, certainly. I'd prefer some Tarkalian tea," she said as Ben Holloway brought another glass of wine around. He offered it to Kate, but she waved it away.

"I'm going to go, no thanks. Sorry -- as much as I've enjoyed our time, I'm exhausted," Kate said as she rose and headed for the door. "Good night, all."

There was a subtle emotional shift in the room after she was gone. Marius gave Jean-Luc another look, and his eyes flicked to Deanna as well. "You don't trust her."

"You said you weren't as empathic as all that," Deanna chided. Sisko glanced at Odo and gazed across the table at her, questions in his eyes.

"Not as empathic as you, but we're all in the same room, and you don't talk as freely with her around as you do when it's just your friends," Marius said.

"She was experimenting with a procedure that deliberately traumatizes people, on one of my best friends," Deanna said. "And she isn't telling us everything. She's on probation."

"I suppose this means you trust us," Odo commented. "You've been talking openly despite not really knowing us at all."

"You've passed the test," Marius said. "The empath leads, we all follow."

"I also think Kate is one of the test subjects for engrammatic dissociation," Deanna continued, as if no one had spoken. "A successful one."

That led to stares leveled her direction -- it led to Jean-Luc leaned on the table, his eyes nearly closed, his anger tightly controlled.

"When Thomas brought me the information he said that Kate had given it to him. When I commented on it to Kate, she denied it. When I am confronted by two people who were both telling me the truth -- it's the kind of thing that I can almost see, it's like all the cells in the body line up going the same direction, it's like what they are saying just _is_ \-- what conclusion can I draw, other than that they are telling the truth as they see it? Absent the possibility of a twin sister, a clone, a shapeshifter imitating Kate, I really don't see another possibility."

"Then this is a real thing," Marius rumbled, deeply disturbed by it. She was gratified to sense how surprising it was to him, and how upsetting. "It could happen... to any of us."

"Fear is uncalled for," Deanna exclaimed. "Cautiousness is warranted. The problem with this is we can't use a phaser to deal with this enemy because the soldiers are us."

"We need a way to tell who's been compromised, then," Holloway said, leaning back until his chair creaked. "We need about a dozen of you, Deanna."

"There's a reason Betazoids are pulling back," Deanna exclaimed. "They don't enroll in the Academy in the same numbers as before. There's a reason telepathic species are isolating themselves on their own worlds. We can't stomach the duplicity that's been perpetrated over and over, can't participate in it. We can't live like that. It isn't that we don't have secrets -- it's that life divided against the self, against friends, is abhorrent to us."

Odo harrumphed at that. "You can speak for your entire species?"

"I can, because we may not have the Great Link, but when I am on Betazed I can be telepathic. I can be a part of the greater mind of all Betazoids, and while we don't constantly share thoughts with each other we share consciousness in a way I can't describe to you, using this limited language with its limited vocabulary. I don't have questions about the history of my world, and we do not have history classes the way non-telepathic worlds do. Because I can tell you what my twelve-times-great grandfather was thinking and feeling, when he stood on the patch of ground on which he built the current seat of the government of Betazed, which my mother now runs with full support of the rest of the world, because while on the surface she is a crazy woman who's had ten husbands, or eleven -- frankly I try to block that out -- underneath she is so much more than that. And we Betazoids see what is underneath."

"And so Kate is still your friend," Sisko commented.

Deanna sighed, putting her hands on top of her belly. "Humans still try to see dichotomies. It's easier to understand than to sort out how someone we love can violate principles we thought we shared. Kate isn't so difficult -- if your life has been threatened, or that of someone you care about, it becomes less about principles and more about survival, or protecting someone."

"There aren't many who would die for their principles, so _they_ have plenty of fodder for their little projects," Marius said.

Holloway was staring into his nearly-empty wine glass as if trying to read the future in it. Deanna waited until he noticed her watching him to smile sympathetically. He grimaced and rolled his eyes.

"You shouldn't worry about her," she said, guessing that he had to be thinking about Elena.

"You aren't a telepath?" he exclaimed. "Are you sure about that?"

"I cannot describe to you what it is to be an empath. You have a word for each emotion -- suppose we were to say you are worried. There are a thousand shades of worry. A parent, like Mr. Sisko, worries about his son's understanding of an intimate relationship, because he perhaps thinks Jake is too naive and he is torn between pride at watching his son growing up to an understanding of it, and sorrow that he is losing his little boy, and it manifests itself as worry. Jean-Luc -- " she glanced at him and immediately began to shake her head, as he sat up and became apprehensive. "Oh, I won't even get started, about how anxious he is that I'm going to start talking about how he feels about the idea of me talking about how he feels. I could talk all day about all the nuances of Picard anxiety. Suffice it to say that after years of providing therapy to a mostly-human crew of more than a thousand people and plenty of practice matching what is said to what is felt, it really is no great difficult task, to know that you are sitting there worrying about _her_ , and to distinguish that anxiety from any you might feel about a friend, or a sibling, or a subordinate."

"All day?" Jean-Luc muttered. "I had no idea I was so complicated."

Deanna laughed, a little. "Such sarcasm."

"I'm glad to hear you're keeping the old ass honest, at least," Holloway said with a grin. "And, since you're being exceptionally open about things, yes, I am worried about her, and I want to ask if you think that's realistic concern."

"No, I don't think it is."

Marius gave her an amused look, then looked sidelong at Holloway. "What about him? Should we worry about him?"

"If she was worried about any of us, why would she be talking this way?" Jean-Luc exclaimed. 

Odo sat up straighter, and glanced at Sisko before addressing Deanna. "We're placing a lot of faith in you. How are we to know we're able to trust you?"

She kept her defensiveness in check internally, also Jean-Luc's -- took a moment to consider the question. "Do you trust Captain Sisko?"

Sisko humphed quietly, almost to himself, simultaneously amused and surprised. Odo glanced at him. "Yes."

"If he ordered you into a situation where you were certain to die, would you go?"

Another look at Sisko, with an open mouth. "Yes," Odo replied firmly. "But I'm not sure what that has to do with whether I should trust you."

"Starfleet trusts you, because your commanding officer trusts you. You could be considered a security breach -- but you are not, and were admitted into the most secure part of the building at Starfleet Command. I could ask you the same question but I assume the answer because I am a Starfleet officer. Also, I see Captain Sisko, and his son, and I can sense from each of them exactly what I would expect to sense, from an honest Starfleet family with nothing to hide. He has had enough experience with you, and I sense he is not lying when he speaks about you. Starfleet also trusts Captain Picard."

"I think I need more wine," Jean-Luc said quietly.

"Captain Picard trusts me. So does a fleet admiral. Marius, as well. Although not nearly so much. But he has yet to play poker with me."

"Poker," Odo echoed dubiously. 

"What do you mean, not so much?" Marius said, scowling.

"You like me, you're mostly certain that I'm trustworthy, but we haven't been in situations where you are able to test whether I am completely trustworthy. Which is fair enough. You didn't spend seven years with me, while endlessly facing challenging situations with new species and circumstances that would challenge anyone's principles. Or playing poker. You are trusting the fleet admiral's read on me."

"I suppose this is more of what you're saying, you can sense this about me?" Marius wasn't sure he appreciated this conversation.

"And you have the ongoing uneasiness of someone I've taken the time to explain my empathy to -- I don't tell everyone I meet about this. Just as every Betazoid fails to disclose just how much of your thoughts are broadcast into thin air, because it's not worthwhile -- Betazoids shield themselves from that sort of thing, so they won't be picked up randomly. That comment you aren't making about Mother isn't true," she continued, turning to Jean-Luc, who leaned away from her in dismay. "It's easy to pretend the false commentary she has about people's thoughts is real, but you know it's not."

"Do you ever get used to this?" Holloway said, to Jean-Luc. 

Deanna sighed, as the baby started another round of boxing. He had been doing so on and off all day. "The other way you could learn to trust me would be getting to know me -- and I you, since I'm actually relying upon your relationship with Captain Sisko and my mother to deduce that you are trustworthy. Which is all I have since I can't sense whether or not you are lying to me."

Odo smiled, and even chuckled a little. "I have never anticipated that I might have to rely upon a reference provided by Lwaxana Troi."

"I bet you didn't," Deanna said, matching his smile. She glanced at Jean-Luc. He gave her a wary look and went for more wine. "You stop drinking that now. I am not peeling you off the floor."

"We have transporters," Holloway said, grinning as if they were the most amusing thing he'd seen all day. Perhaps they were.

"So what should we do about Kate?" Marius asked. Apparently he deemed the tangent done.

"Make her walk the plank," Jean-Luc said, returning with his third glass of wine. Deanna stared at him, and his glass. He shrugged. "Are we going to lock her up? What for? Put her on trial? How would we do that?"

"Treat her condition?" Sisko asked.

"Going where no one has gone before," Deanna exclaimed, rising from the table. "While I go where I've been a thousand times today, because the baby keeps dancing on my bladder."

"It's quite late, we should be going anyway," Jean-Luc said.

"Good night," Holloway said. "See you tomorrow."

"And the next three days," Marius said. "Lunch tomorrow?"

"Good night," Deanna said with a smile. "See you at lunch."

Jean-Luc was able to walk straight, on the way back to their quarters, she noticed. When she returned from the bathroom, he was already peeling off clothing. "What do you think?" she asked, as she unbuttoned the front of her dress.

"We don't know how to help someone who has a case of engrammatic dissociation, but Kate herself may be able to help with that."

"So that explains the lack of despair on your part, when I mentioned it." She pulled free the hair band and shook out her hair. "I suppose we have enough time left in the trip to discuss it with her."

"I'm not sure I'll trust her even if it can be fixed."

"Even if I deduce that we can?" Deanna slipped under the covers. "Then again, you never have liked her very much."

"Not what I care to talk about before bed, you know."

"Would you like to clean your teeth before you kiss me? You smell like wine."

He left the bed again. "How to tell you're married...."

 

 


	60. Resistence is Pretty Much Status Quo by Now

Deanna stared at her reflection morosely. She left her hair down, but clipped it back from her face. The red dress she'd put on, that she had thought might look all right, managed to show off her belly even more than the gray one she'd just taken off. "I have four and a half months left -- he's supposed to at least double in size. I'm not going to be able to walk!"

"It sounds like you are rethinking those ten children?" Jean-Luc pulled on the second shoe and stood up from the end of the bed. "You look fine."

"This dress makes me look bigger than I am." He distracted her by coming up behind her and sliding his palms forward along her sides to meet over her distended belly. "He's asleep."

They spent a few minutes connected and swaying together, eyes closed. She leaned back against him and almost wished it would be possible to stay there -- he acknowledged that and agreed, thinking that she could do that -- he could apologize to the rest of them and tell them she wasn't feeling well. But in the end she turned and followed him out.

"You wore red," he commented. He'd put on a blue sweater.

"I don't usually wear bold colors but it suited me today."

"You were having another dream last night."

"I did, but I'm fine now," she said, smiling. "Just another one of those nightmares." In fact, it had been worse than before -- she'd had the misfortune of dreaming that the Borg had assimilated everyone aboard, including the baby. But she didn't want him to know that.

Marius came out of a suite down the hall as they passed it and grinned at her. He had come along with them instead of his brother, after all. "Quite a statement. Aren't the colors reversed?"

"I suppose he feels he should be in blue, after the morning we've had," Deanna said. "Some days I feel like I'm going to just turn inside out."

"Ah, morning sickness -- my lovely bride suffered that for most of her second pregnancy," Marius exclaimed, turning to walk with them toward the lift. "It stopped after the first trimester, with the first child. Are you feeling any better?"

"Yes, though I may restrict my lunch menu to the bland and innocuous. How are you today, Marius?"

"Doing well enough, though I spent most of the morning on subspace with Darius. He said to tell you he misses your smile."

"I suppose now that Elena's adjutant is back at work, that would be logical," Deanna said with a grin. She'd only spent a few hours with the Vulcan lieutenant, but it was enough to know smiles would no longer be status quo in the fleet admiral's front office. 

"Is everything peaceful, at Command?" Jean-Luc asked.

"No more power outages, and the investigations continue," Marius said. He leaned toward portly, in addition to being stocky, and tended to waddle a little -- Deanna felt moderately self conscious as she felt herself semi-waddling as well. Beverly had warned her about this.

"Any other news about Leyton's corps of conspirators?"

"There have been arrests. I believe though that most of his 'recruits' were unaware of the true scope of his plans. They have started to blood test, to determine whether there are any other changelings at Command." Marius shook his head mournfully. "Admiral Mira was one of those arrested. You have good instincts, my dear."

Deanna made a face. Jean-Luc's response was an arm around her waist, as they left the lift on deck two. 

Kate and Sisko were already there. "Where's Jake?" Deanna asked, sitting in the chair Jean-Luc pulled out for her. He went to the replicator to the far right of the table.

"Jake is in a holodeck -- he found a couple of kids his age among the crew, I think they might be playing spring ball," Sisko said. "And Odo said he felt he was better off 'not eating' in his quarters."

"Data had similar feelings on the matter some of the time," Deanna said. "It's difficult being the odd one out. I suppose I don't think much about that -- everyone on our senior staff was in their way the odd one out."

It resonated with Sisko, curiously, and with Marius. "I know how you feel," Marius said. "Sometimes despite the general attitude of acceptance, it's lonely being the only alien in the room. Especially if you are empathic."

Deanna smiled sadly at him. "I would imagine you have an edge on the other admirals, though."

"If you ever need a job...."

It made her shiver. "It's bad enough to go day to day as I have. I don't like intelligence work. Didn't like undercover, don't like pretending."

Jean-Luc placed a large bowl of her favorite blue leaf salad in front of her, along with a glass of water. He went back to the replicator. Sisko, sitting next to Kate across the table from them, was eating something that looked like stew. Kate had a plate of something Deanna didn't recognize, which she was eating with a fork. Marius moved behind Deanna toward the replicator.

"Undercover work isn't for everyone," Kate said, waving her fork as she chewed. "So Jean-Luc, will you be going back to ship duty? I'm curious -- you've gone through so much and it never deterred you, but parenthood is definitely new territory for you."

"I've been giving it some thought. No decision yet." He sat down on Deanna's right with a bowl and started to spoon soup into his mouth.

"I'm sure you'll be excellent parents. Deanna always had a knack with children, and recalcitrant officers for that matter." Kate smirked -- it was clear that Jake's presence last night had kept her usual biting commentary at bay. She was eyeing Jean-Luc, with the same old puckish mischief.

Deanna knew Jean-Luc felt some ire at the dig, which said he knew it was aimed at him, and she felt a surge of anger. She'd been grumpy a lot over the past week, and had to make great efforts to set it aside. But she jabbed her fork into her salad with a little more force than necessary.

Kate glanced at her, but her eyes went right back to Jean-Luc. "I know your mother was hoping you would have a big traditional wedding on Betazed -- are you planning to do that? I'd like to attend."

"No, we married on Earth and Mother was in attendance." Deanna stabbed a few vegetables and lettuce leaves angrily.

"I hear it was a lovely ceremony," Marius said jovially. "Elena was impressed enough to mention it."

"It was a wonderful ceremony," Deanna replied. "Although the seasickness interrupted the reception."

"When I heard you were together, you could have knocked me over with a feather -- I wouldn't have imagined," Kate exclaimed, waving her fork again. "After how many years of being his counselor, through the assimilation and the torture -- "

Deanna's fork banged into the bowl with a loud clang and she rocketed up from her chair to lean on the table, catching herself before she could lunge across the table. Immediately, Jean-Luc grabbed her wrist. Everyone froze.

"Sit," Jean-Luc murmured. It was an order; she knew he was anxious, but he was still her captain and he could still be that calm and give the orders. She slowly lowered herself again and held her belly in both hands, breathing slowly, trying not to remember the imagery in last night's dreams. Jean-Luc pointed at Kate. "You are being deliberately provocative in front of a hormonal brown belt Betazoid -- if you have any sense of self preservation you'll change that."

"A brown belt? When I left the _Enterprise_ you were doing yoga," Kate exclaimed. She lost the smirk and shrugged sheepishly. "I'm sorry, Deanna. Old habits die hard."

"Hard old women die easily," Deanna muttered. Marius, sitting next to her, almost blew a mouthful of water he'd just sipped and caught himself just in time.

"Deanna," Jean-Luc said under his breath.

Marius put a hand on her shoulder. Deanna looked at him, and they stared at each other. "My dear, you're too upset right now -- you should -- "

"No," she blurted, as tears finally escaped. She put her hands over her eyes. Now everyone was feeling sympathy, and Kate radiated guilt -- and Deanna wanted to start throwing things at her, still.

"Come on, dear," Marius crooned, pulling her over slightly, and she gave in -- leaned and cried on his shoulder while he put an arm around her shoulders. He was built like Worf, she realized, which didn't help at all. She managed to pull it together after a moment and reached for her napkin as she sat upright again, dabbing at her eyes.

"Brings back memories," Sisko said softly, with a wistful smile. "Jennifer had these crazy crying spells when she was pregnant."

"I just -- I need to go," Deanna exclaimed.

"Go?" Jean-Luc asked, calmly.

"I can't, I can't sit here."

"Stand? Walk? Run?"

"I have to -- " She swiveled the chair and lunged for the door.

"Ah, she needs to _go_ ," Jean-Luc said as she left the room.

 When she returned from the restroom down the corridor, she debated just going back to quarters. She'd spent ten minutes at least crying some more, and her eyes were red. But she wobbled into the dining room, and sat down again. Everyone watched her with concern -- Kate was open-mouthed. Deanna pushed the salad away. Just the thought of it turned her stomach.

"You should eat something -- what would you like?" Jean-Luc was up and moving as he spoke. "Ice cream?"

"The one with the -- "

"Yes, all right," Jean-Luc said from the replicator. "The disgusting one."

Sisko started to chortle in the thoroughly amused way he had. "I remember cravings too. Like pickles, and deep fried okra."

"Oh, no pickles in this." Jean-Luc put a bowl of chocolate ice cream in front of her, appropriately dressed out in layers of chocolate shavings, fudge topping, and a marshmallow sauce -- it was the biggest pile of sugar based confection she'd seen, at least since the last one.

"That's the least healthy thing I've ever seen. And I've eaten a lot of unhealthy things," Kate exclaimed. "Fortunately for my self preservation, I'm not your doctor."

"That kid will have a sweet tooth the size of McKinley Station," Marius said. They were trying hard to keep it lighthearted. Walking on eggshells -- that made it worse, but she was determined not to keep crying.

"That would be a matter of genetics," Jean-Luc said, watching a loaded spoonful rise from the bowl to disappear into Deanna's mouth.

"I suspect he'll also have a fascination with shiny starships and possibly Freud," she said, putting another heaping spoon of chocolate ice cream in her mouth. She swallowed it down without letting it linger on her tongue. "So tell me, Kate, about engrammatic disassociation and how it works. Or how it's supposed to work, anyway."

Kate knew something was up. But she also knew her safety depended on them -- they had brought her on this trip to get her off Earth, far from people who might do her harm, and though she wasn't smiling, she started to talk about her research. Marius leaned forward, paying rapt attention -- the captains were interested as well. Deanna slowly finished her ice cream and waited for the right moment to request Kate's records on her 'project.'

 

* * *

 

 

When they arrived at Deep Space Nine, Jean-Luc shouldered their two bags and they joined Kate, Sisko, Jake and Odo in the transporter room. Marius wasn't there, and Holloway came in just before they were about to beam out.

"We'll be on a patrol for a couple of weeks while we're here," Holloway said. "Contact me if you need us."

"Thank you, Ben," Jean-Luc exclaimed. "See you when you get back." He shook his friend's hand and turned to join Deanna on the pad.

"Marius went ahead of you -- bearding the lion in his den," Holloway commented, meaning that he had wanted first crack at Admiral Ross. "Have a great time on Bajor."

After the transport Sisko was the first to step down -- he turned to face them. "Jake and I are heading to quarters -- I have a uniform to put on, and he needs to get to school."

"I'll see you later -- I'm going to my office," Odo said as he strode away with an officious nod to the transporter attendant.

"Let me know if you need anything -- I can give you a suite, just check in with the bridge, they'll guide you. Unfortunately the station's computers aren't so friendly as a starship's," Sisko said with a smile. "Welcome to Deep Space Nine."

"Thank you," Jean-Luc said warmly.

"I hope you'll come for dinner tonight -- I make a mean gumbo."

"We'll look forward to it," Deanna said.

Sisko turned, dropping a hand on his son's shoulder, and the two left them there. Jean-Luc started for the door himself. Deanna followed him out into the station proper. Kate tagged along silently, feeling guarded and wary.

It had been a long time since they'd been there, and the station was busier than Deanna remembered -- full of Bajorans and Starfleet and other species. Deanna stayed close to her husband, almost being shoved against him a few times in their slow progress down the Promenade. The wide-open lifts were nothing 'turbo' -- slow and lurching, as they rode up to the bridge. They were greeted by Chief O'Brien, who was a little taken aback by the news of their marriage but moved on quickly to getting them quarters. He arranged for Kate's as well, at Jean-Luc's request. Deanna was disappointed to hear that Keiko and the children were off the station. They left the bridge and went to deck fifteen, where they were all assigned quarters.

"So where will you be going from here?" Kate asked as they left the lift. "You said something about a spa?"

"We'll be heading to Bajor in a day or two. We have a reservation -- I'm not sure where, he's being cagey about it," Deanna said, raising an eyebrow at Jean-Luc.

"Complain about the lack of fun surprises, and then when I try...."

"I wasn't trying to pry it out of you. She asked." Deanna put her arm through his and bumped him, shoulder to shoulder. "Are you looking for somewhere to go?"

"I'm actually wondering what you had planned for me while you're on vacation -- asking Miles to register me under an alias that way lets me know you still think I'm at risk."

"I think you may be at more risk on the station, actually," Jean-Luc said. "How many agents do you suppose are out here?"

"Fair point. Well, I think I'll lock myself in my cabin for the rest of the day -- maybe I'll look at resorts myself."

"Kate," Deanna said gently, slowing to a halt in the corridor. Jean-Luc shot her a look and went through the door into their quarters, taking the bags with him.

"Don't expect me to believe you brought me along solely because you cared, especially after all the lecturing and outrage that I wasn't brave enough to stand up for my principles, be a good little soldier for the Federation, instead of surviving all this while," Kate exclaimed.

Deanna felt very, very tired and desolate. She rubbed her brow and sighed. "Kate. You can do whatever you want. If you don't want our help, or to help us, no one's going to stop you from leaving. I'm sorry if you feel like I haven't been reassuring enough, or whatever. I feel like hammered shit -- and I finally understand what that means, after Mike McCormick's ongoing use of the term for the past year. I may sleep through dinner, so I'll see you tomorrow."

Kate sighed and came to touch her arm. "Are you having more difficulties than you're admitting? Anything I can do to help?"

"I'm just tired all the time. And aching -- I feel like I've done too many sit ups or something. I occasionally have this sharp pain, down here, since I got up this morning. I've been assuming it's a pulled muscle."

That brought a concerned frown to her face. "Inside."

Jean-Luc was coming out of the bedroom when they entered. He noticed the way Kate was guiding Deanna into the living room. "What's wrong?"

"That would be the question of the hour," Kate exclaimed. "Sit. I have a medical tricorder in my things." She drew her bag into her lap as she sat on the couch next to Deanna.

"Kate?" Deanna exclaimed anxiously when scans resulted in more frowning.

"We're going to sickbay. We need more than a medical tricorder."

"What is it?" Jean-Luc snapped.

"I don't have enough information but I think she might have pulled a ligament." Kate dropped her bag on the floor and stood up. "Come on, let's go to sickbay."

Kate made her walk slowly, and asked questions all the way to the infirmary about her exercise regimen, her last doctor visit and eating habits. Jean-Luc stayed close behind and was tense as if they were in the middle of a red alert. As they left the lift on the Promenade, he tucked a hand in the small of her back and followed very closely.

Kate greeted the doctor who came from his office in the back of the infirmary -- he looked very young. "I think we might have a round ligament tear," Kate said, leading Deanna forward. "Or a pull. I'd like to get a better look at what's going on. Dr. Pulaski," Kate added, extending a hand.

"Dr. Bashir," the young man said. "Right over here on the bed, please. What is your name?"

"Deanna. It hurts if I stand on my toes and this is too high." Jean-Luc stepped in to help her up on the biobed the doctor indicated. It led to an appraising glance from Bashir. But he went right to work on running scans, and Kate avidly watched the screens.

"It's a pull," Bashir said. "I don't see any tearing -- the baby looks fine. He's an active little fellow. You should be fine -- we can target the ligament with a regenerator, and then some bed rest for a day should do the rest."

"From what we discussed on the way here, she has a fairly ambitious exercise regimen -- I think cutting back is called for, and you might consider a belly band for some additional support, since you're carrying him so much front and center."

"I agree with Dr. Pulaski. So we'll see you back here tomorrow afternoon, I'd like to do a full workup actually, if you're going to be here on the station. Are you Starfleet officers? You look familiar, particularly you, sir?" Bashir brought over a regenerator and adjusted it.

It led to a full introduction, and an explanation of their plans, and that led to questions as Bashir went into the history of the pregnancy. And then the two doctors started to talk, which led to them talking shop, and Deanna exited the infirmary happy to have involved Kate in something. Jean-Luc continued to hover in his anxious way, all the way back to their suite, where he put her to bed immediately.

"I'm not dying, Jean-Luc," Deanna exclaimed. "I'm not fragile."

He tossed her dress across the foot of the bed and pulled up the covers over her. "You're obviously overlooking your health. Why didn't you say you were in pain?"

"It wasn't much of a -- please come sit here with me for a minute?"

He came around the bed and leaned up against the headboard. He was so wound up that he was trying not to fidget. She almost pushed herself up to sit next to him, but stayed on her back and settled for taking his hand.

"Look at you, being all stiff and Captain Uptight."

Jean-Luc scowled down at her.

"Jean-Luc, there are certain realities to being pregnant. One of them is a certain level of discomfort, on an ongoing basis, and some minor aches and pains. I don't complain about everything because there's really nothing to be done about it. I only started having the brief pains just today, and I brought it up. I'm not hiding anything from you."

"The hardest thing about all of this is the waiting, frankly," he said, gripping her hand. "I don't like being so... useless."

"You're not useless. You've been wonderful, Jean-Luc."

"I've been frustrated. You know that. I woke up last night, to you screaming -- all I could do was hang on to you and let you cry. I hate it when you cry."

"You hate it when anyone cries." Deanna smiled up at him. "I'm sorry I was such a basket case today. I don't want to be so weepy."

"I thought you were going to stab Pulaski with your fork at lunch." He chuckled about it, sliding down the bed and coming to rest on his elbow.

"You would have enjoyed it, but thank you for stopping me."

"You could have let her do her worst, Deanna. I'm not quite so traumatized as I used to be, about things."

Deanna closed her eyes and thought about the baby, about Alexander -- she had talked to him every morning since they had left Earth, he was holding up so well and showing no sign of the anxiety he'd had before -- and tried to stop the tears.

"Deanna?" That concerned word signaled her utter failure.

"I want to stop crying," she blurted, as he gathered her up into his arms.

"I wish that I could help," he muttered into her hair.

"I dreamed -- we were all assimilated," she cried. "That it was -- "

The door chime sounded through the suite. He ignored it, but it sounded again. "I'm going to go shove someone out an airlock, I'll be right back," he exclaimed, carefully extricating himself. While he was gone behind the closed bedroom door she mopped her face furiously with a corner of the sheet.

But he came back with Kate, and surprised her as he continued whatever conversation they were having. "She's having difficulty sleeping, keeps having nightmares. Isn't there anything she could take?"

Kate stared at him for a moment, with the cool, calculating assessment of a doctor. "You know, I'll bet you've been having a tough time with this."

"I'm fine," he insisted.

"Is he?" Kate asked, crossing her arms. "Or is he feeling like he should be doing something to solve all your aches and pains, and bombarding you with all that impotent frustration on an ongoing basis?"

Deanna shoved herself into a sitting position on the edge of the bed, and resisted the urge to start shouting. "We are perfectly aware of how we feel about the situation, and your commentary is redundant."

"You get so angry at me," Kate said softly. "We used to talk to each other like that all the time. Pull no punches."

"If you're so determined to be sensitive, why haven't you noticed that I'm in the middle of trying to figure out the rest of my life, while we're so caught up in this _mission_ we've taken on that stutters along without real resolution, while taking care of a child whose future rests on our ability to resolve the _mission_ \-- Alexander should be able to come and go as he pleases, in the Federation, and this war is tearing apart a treaty that would have let him go see his uncle and return again -- and oh, yes, I'm pregnant. I get to decide whether to have a baby on a starship, with all the risks that entails, or stay on a planet where _they_ can more easily find me and make me regret being honest, or use me. And you want to come help me by telling me things I already know." Deanna felt a twinge of discomfort low in her side, as she stood up a little faster than she probably should have. "You want to make light of the traumas that took _weeks_ of my life to untangle, while I went through endless worries that he wouldn't recover, and I also had to live through all of his pain right along with him, and you want to tease him about it and smile at you for it. Because all the anxiety I feel about my current situation is triggering nightmares of being assimilated doesn't mean that I'm not going to be up to trading biting remarks with you? Nothing I've been through should have changed me, is that what you think? Why would I have difficulty listening to you reference any of this in what was supposed to be polite dinner conversation? Excuse me, I have to go."

She went around the bed into the bathroom without looking at Jean-Luc as she brushed past him -- she knew too well how he felt already, and knew that he could tell how irritable she was. After emptying her bladder, she fussed around for extra minutes washing her hands and braiding her hair -- it was a hopeless cause, gone to frizz and needing a good brushing, but at least it was out of the way. When she came out the two of them were watching her, Jean-Luc leaning against the wall near the door.

"I'm sorry," Kate said with the chagrin that made the apology sincere. "You're right."

"Why are you here?" Deanna went to the bed and sat, swinging her legs up and reclining against the head board.

"I wanted to let you know that I'm in," Kate said, folding her hands in front of her. "Because I know you have doubts about me. I would, too. I've been feeling that you've left me out of conversations, feeling like there are a lot of things you aren't telling me, but I thought about that a little more today and came to the conclusion that it makes sense for you to do that."

Deanna exchanged a glance, and a thought, with Jean-Luc. He'd left one of their dampening devices on the table in the living room. She tilted her head and sighed. "When you were telling us earlier about engrammatic disassociation, and I asked you about reversing it, why did you lie to me?"

It left Kate open-mouthed. "You didn't -- what are you talking about?"

"You told us about it at lunch. Do you remember when I got angry at you?"

"Yes, and then you were teasing each other about the baby, while you were eating that pile of ice cream. And then I went back to my quarters."

"Kate, one of my concerns is that you're one of those who's been subjected to it. You're confirming that, if you can't remember having the conversation with us."

Kate glanced back and forth between them, incredulous. "What conversation? about what?"

"Do you know what engrammatic disassociation is?" Deanna asked, testing.

"No. Why would I?"

Jean-Luc straightened and dropped his hands to his sides, at the ready. Deanna gave him a stern look. "Kate, tell me about engrammatic disassociation. Tell me how it works."

This time, she caught the very subtle but noticeable shift of emotion. "But I've already talked to you about that."

"What have we been talking about, Kate?"

"Jean-Luc just asked me about something to do about the nightmares you're having."

"So you don't remember confronting me about being angry at you?"

Kate frowned. "When were you angry at me?"

"Something is flipping you back and forth from one ego state to the other, Kate. I need to know how to re-integrate the two ego states."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Kate exclaimed indignantly.

 "Kate, you have engrammatic disassociation -- you are a risk to us, until we can remove it. Do you know how to do that?"

Kate's nostrils actually flared, and her lips thinned as her mouth tightened. "You're saying that they did it to me. That what I failed to do has already been done. That I'm not in my right mind?" She raised both hands to her face. "What have they made me do that I don't know that I've done?"

"I don't know. Can you help us reverse it?"

"I want to," she said. "I'm not sure that I can. I don't understand what purpose it served -- if I'm already a victim of it, why would I be tasked with research to create such a state in someone else?"

Jean-Luc was thinking, fingers steepled in front of his chin, and raised his head to answer. "The only reason I can think of for such an odd sequence of events would be that you're caught between agents who have turned against other agents."

"You're saying there is dissent among the conspirators?" Kate exclaimed, her voice rising to a hysterical high pitch. "That I'm a victim twice over!"

"Well, since we began on this _mission_ ," Jean-Luc said, crossing his arms again, "I've caught myself being paranoid multiple times about people I thought were trustworthy. We've come a long way from the days on the _Enterprise_ , when we could believe that everyone in Starfleet was defending the same Federation. I knew better than to pretend that everyone agreed about the principles and value system that Starfleet expects all of us to serve -- I wasn't aware of the depth of corruption that exists. I think, now that I am, I'm going to have a difficult time returning to command, unless we can make significant progress in countering the subterfuge and blackmail that so many have been dealt. It wouldn't surprise me that the conspiracy would be divided against itself as well."

"The other explanation -- the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing, so to speak," Deanna said. "If agents are kept isolated from each other it may be that two of them independently chose you for two very different roles -- victim and then perpetrator."

"Okay," Kate whispered, looking at the floor.

"Kate, you're tired too, and we both need to rest -- let's meet tomorrow morning and talk about this after you've had some time to think about it. Come by around eleven hundred hours."

The doctor nodded, and met Deanna's eyes with grim acceptance. "Thank you. I should have listened to you earlier, Deanna. I'm sorry."

"It's all right, Kate. Good night."

After Kate was gone, Jean-Luc came around to the other side of the bed, and sat with her again. "Want me to read you to sleep?"

"Are you going to the dinner?"

"Only if you're sleeping through it."

"All right. What's the technical manual of the day? Or are we resorting to some sort of old Earth literature?"

"I brought a variety of things, stored in a padd. You make yourself comfortable, I'll be right back."

 


	61. Tickling the Elephant

"I hate bedrest!" Deanna shouted into the empty suite.

"Please restate your request," the computer said politely.

She rubbed her eyes and moaned. Being flat out in bed was her least favorite thing -- she'd slept for two hours, meditated for one, and Jean-Luc was having a passably good time at dinner from what she could tell. That meant no drama, at least, with the Siskos and Marius. He'd informed her that Sisko's paramour, first officer, operations officer, and the doctor had all attended, but Kate was notably absent.

"Computer, what's the time?"

"The time is now seventeen hundred twenty-four."

"Computer, open a channel -- I want to contact Commander Beverly Crusher, on Earth. Use a secure channel."

After a few moments, the computer politely announced, "Channel open to Commander Beverly Crusher."

"Deanna," Beverly exclaimed happily. "I just came down from your place. Alexander's playing one of those complicated board games with Wes and the Garcia twins. The Rozhenkos are impressed with his attitude."

"I'm happy to hear he's doing so well. How are you?"

A brief pause. "Okay, so what's going on? I can hear that tone."

"I'm stuck in bed. I hate being stuck in bed. I hate being right about things. I hate being alone while there's a party and people are enjoying themselves."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Dee. Why are you stuck in bed?"

Deanna rolled from her left side to her back, just for the change -- it wasn't too uncomfortable yet, if she bent her knees. "Kate and the doctor here at Deep Space Nine ganged up on me -- I pulled a ligament, probably when I had a nightmare last night."

"You're still having those? Have you tried any of the teas I suggested?"

"I tried them over the past four nights, a different one each night. No joy. I guess herbal teas don't stack up against the incredible anxiety that I'm feeling in the face of mounting evidence that we are fleas attempting to drive away a dog."

A heavy sigh, followed by some quiet clinking that said Beverly was having her own cup of tea. "We knew that, already. But you're right, it's feeling harder and harder, not having all of the information we need. It's like that old parable about the blind men and the elephant."

"What parable?"

Beverly sipped loudly. "It's an old, old story I heard a long time ago -- I don't remember from whom. Anyway, it's about six blind men who find an elephant, and use their hands to figure out what it is. Each of them finds a different part of the animal and comes to a different conclusion. In some versions, apparently, all the blind men talk to each other and find a consensus on what it really is, instead of persisting in their mistaken assumptions. In others it's an argument until someone who is not blind comes along, and resolves the argument."

Deanna stared at the wall, at the copy of some painting she didn't recognize that she'd been glaring at for half an hour. It was an abstract in reds and greens, and she decided she would figure out where it came from and never go there. She closed her eyes, remembering all of the random bits of history Jean-Luc had popped out with over the years, that had at times led to success in missions. There were thousands of old parables and myths in every culture. Jean-Luc accumulated historical trivia like most people accumulated clothes. But sometimes, as this one did, it illuminated the way.

"Beverly, can you do me a favor?"

"Sure, what's up?"

"I need you to go over to Ellie's house."

"Ellie?"

Deanna rolled her eyes, and wondered if the replicator would give her something for the headache. She knew secure lines were only so secure, and didn't want to call out people by name, especially the fleet admiral. She'd told Elena she would let her know when they reached Deep Space Nine, but was becoming more anxious about taking chances with direct contact via subspace.

"Yes, you need to go over there, and let her know I haven't forgotten about the invitations she's going to send -- I think you should tell her the story about the elephant too. You should go over there now. I've been trying to reach her, let her know that it's time, but you know how she can be. Call me when you get back."

"Okay," Beverly said uncertainly.

"She tickles elephants," Deanna said. "She'd appreciate it."

Another few moments crawled by. Clearly, the clue was going nowhere.

"Is it sunset yet? I've always enjoyed walking in the park at sunset." Elena's house was near the park they spent time in with Alexander. Maybe that would jog the associations in Beverly's brain. "I bet she's baking another pie, about now." Elena had brought apple pie to the last meeting, fresh from a bakery.

"Oh, yes, I bet that's true," Beverly exclaimed, a smile in her voice -- it had clicked at last. "I was going to take a walk anyway, so I'll drop in. Let her know you said hi. Talk to you soon."

"Thanks."

The computer chirped to let her know the call had been terminated. Deanna closed her eyes again and attempted another meditation, but the murmuring of emotions around her distracted her. The ongoing difficulty of empathy.

"Computer, search for the story of the six blind men and the elephant."

"There are three hundred twenty-seven variations. Please specify."

"Just... play the first one, and then each variation."

She listened for a while, and called a halt after ten versions. Rolled on her side again. The baby began another of his boxing matches and she spent a while floating in baby bliss with him. The computer signaled the incoming call, finally, after about an hour.

"Deanna," Beverly's voice sang out triumphantly. "You were right -- she was in the middle of baking another pie, but I talked to her and she said she's planning the first round of invitations in a week."

That meant Elena would be doing as they had discussed -- disseminating the list to the people on the list was the first round of messages, the second would be to all of Starfleet as Elena had wanted to do. The assembled anti-conspiracy conspirators had voted to use an anonymous method of disseminating the information. Deanna smiled and hugged herself.

"I guess that's a good thing. The rest of the invitations should probably go out next month, early. After we get back from our vacation."

"Oh, and I told El -- lie, about the elephant story. She enjoyed it. Said it was a great analogy for so many things. I didn't ask before -- how is Kate?"

"Kate's taking it easy. You know that thing we were talking about, what did you call it, ED?"

A long, long pause. "Erectile dysfunction?"

Deanna covered her mouth, tightly, stifling a laugh. "I don't know if you found anything more on it, in the articles you were reading?" She supposed her wobbly tone might be mistaken for tears, instead of laughter. "I appreciate that you were willing to do the research."

"Oh, yes," Beverly exclaimed, "I did finish reading -- I think we can do something about that. Want me to forward you some of it?"

"Yes. Anything you have."

"All right. I'm going to make myself some dinner -- please tell me you're eating better?"

"I haven't eaten yet. I had difficulty eating lunch... you know, you're right. I need to go eat. Thanks for the reminder."

Beverly was smiling -- it was audible. "Have a great evening, talk to you later. Tell Jean-Luc I hope things get... harder."

"Oh, good bye already," Deanna exclaimed. "Computer, close the channel." She started to laugh at it, as she slowly sat up. She giggled and got herself a bowl of bland, nourishing cereal out of the replicator, and sat eating it at the dining table. And then she went to the bedroom again, took a green and gold print dress out of the closet, changed out of the rumpled and wrinkled red dress, and brushed and re-braided her hair. A dark red lipstick and some subtle eye color and she felt presentable, though there were still weary lines around the eyes.

She left the suite and made her way to Sisko's quarters. In the corridor she hesitated and took stock of the emotional tenor of the room she was about to enter. She went the last hundred feet and pushed the button.

The door slid open seconds later, and Jake Sisko gaped at her. "Hi," he said with a grin. "Hey, it's Commander Troi."

"What?" Jean-Luc's anger sounded a lot like Captain Picard's anger, and it gave her pause -- but he wasn't in uniform, as she'd managed to convince him not to be for the duration of their extended leave unless he was meeting with admirals. So she took a step inside as Jake moved out of her way, gesturing to welcome her inside, and Sisko and his lovely lady were smiling even though Jean-Luc frowned.

"You're a fine one to talk, Mr. Can't-Stay-in-Sickbay-For-An-Hour," she chided, making her way over to him. Sisko liked decorations, masks on the walls, art on the end tables, and area rugs. African, she thought -- her inner water buffalo approved.

Jean-Luc was sitting in one of the chairs, watching her approach with the scowl that had made officers flinch and cower, and Marius, who was just a few feet away seated on the end of the sofa, watched them as if she had a phaser in her hand. Sisko rose, which reminded everyone else to do the same, and introduced Kasidy Yates.

"This is Mrs. Picard, otherwise known as Commander Troi," Sisko said. "Can I get you anything, Deanna?"

"I got it covered," Jake said as he returned from the replicator with a big mug. "Hot chocolate."

"Thank you, Jake." She accepted it with a smile. "I had something to eat, but the meal isn't complete until there's chocolate."

"Deanna, you were under doctor's orders," Jean-Luc exclaimed, standing in front of his chair with crossed arms.

"Are you going to report me?" She sat in the other chair, the one facing the couch across the coffee table, and sipped her chocolate. "Hmm, cinnamon. Perfect."

Jake dropped into the third chair with a bounce. "I was talking to Kasidy earlier, about your advice -- she said you were right," he announced gleefully.

Jean-Luc settled down again and picked up his drink, but fumed in her direction. "You waited until the doctor left, at least, I suppose."

"I wouldn't want you to be scolded on my behalf, certainly. I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

"Not at all," Kasidy exclaimed. "I was just trying to convince your husband to bring you tomorrow for lunch, so I could meet you. I'm so glad you were feeling well enough to join us."

"I'm feeling much better, thank you. I think I go a little crazy by myself, when I can't sleep, and little Claude was kicking -- "

"Oh, my god," Jean-Luc muttered, and tipped what was left of the liquor in his glass into his mouth.

"Etienne," Deanna said, adding a flinging gesture of her left hand. "Sebastian. Marco, Philippe, Leo -- "

"Or the other twenty names we can't manage to narrow down from?" he snapped.

She gazed at him with wide eyes. There was a moment of tension, and Marius or possibly Ben Sisko made a slight incredulous noise quickly stifled. Jean-Luc stared back at her, and she knew when he started to crack -- there was a wavering of emotion, and then his mouth twitched, and she gave him the sort of smile she rarely brought out in the presence of other people. He started to respond, but tipped too far, into one of those rare moments of comedy -- he must have been enjoying his evening with the Siskos if he had gotten this loose. Slumping, he closed his eyes and flopped against the back of the chair as if he'd been shot.

Deanna started to laugh at him, sipped more chocolate, and was glad to see the rest of them chuckling -- Jake had a little confusion along with the amusement. As the laughter died away she turned to Jake. "Have you finished your story?"

"Naw, I decided you were right, you and Dr. Pulaski," he said. "I'm working on a different one now. Something more autobiographical." There was a sudden shift -- something he felt guilty about. There were some deeply rooted feelings of pain associated with it. He was doing as so many humans did, partially dissociating from whatever trauma lay at the root of it.

"I'm sure whatever it is, it will be a good story," she said, giving him an out. He grinned at her in return.

"Want some more hot chocolate?"

Sisko raised an eyebrow and watched his son jog away to fetch another drink. "I'm sorry you missed Jadzia -- she would have enjoyed meeting you. Jake told her all about you."

"He did?"

Jean-Luc sat up and rambled off to the bar in the far corner to refill his glass. She watched him go and guessed that Beverly would have interpreted his stiff posture to mean anger, or possibly just peevish, but she knew better. He came around the back of the sofa to his chair and she could tell he was going to be grumpy because he wasn't going to express concern for her. And Marius was ignoring him a little too carefully.

"Are you staying on the station for long?" Kasidy asked, not tracking cues from any of them and smiling at Deanna.

"A day or two, depending on the tides."

That got a look from Jean-Luc, and nearly everyone else in the room. Jake came to hand her the new cup with a confused look on his face. "You said you were going to a resort -- is it on a beach?"

Sisko sat forward and gave his son an apologetic smile. "Jake, it's late and you have to finish that math. Why don't you go do that?"

"Aw, okay. Guess I'll see you some other time." He moved off, saying good night to people, and went through a door in a corner of the room.

"I think Jake has a little crush," Kasidy commented with a dimpled smile.

"I'm sure that's a common occurrence, for Deanna," Marius commented, still not looking at Jean-Luc. "On a vessel with a thousand people for seven years, especially. I'm sure there were a few at Command as well. My brother was likely among them."

Deanna smiled serenely and raised her hot chocolate to sip. "I don't sense and tell."

Kasidy was confused, looked to Sisko, who shrugged a little. "She's an empath. She senses emotions -- something to do with being half human, she said."

"Oh," Kasidy exclaimed. "That sounds like a curse. I can't imagine actually knowing what's behind some of the looks on people's faces."

"What are you talking about?" Sisko had the indignation and concern one would expect, of a human defending his own.

"Well, things get tense here on the station. You know how it gets when the Bajoran population faces a visit from some Cardassian, or any time the Kai shows up here to confront you or appeal to you about something."

Sisko's dark expression and the underlying mood told Deanna volumes. "I didn't ask to be labeled the Emissary."

"It's quite the controversy," Marius said, sounding more like the admiral than the friend. "I can appreciate the difficulty of your position."

Jean-Luc was silent, but broody, and disapproved of Sisko not taking a stronger stance on the matter -- he'd talked about that with her before, about Bajor's status in the slow progression toward Federation membership and the conflict of being an Emissary for an entire race of Bajorans, as well as a Starfleet officer. 

"What does being the Emissary entail? I'm afraid I know very little about the Bajoran religion," Deanna said. She sensed the way he balked at the subject. "Unless, of course, you prefer not to talk about it -- I'm sure it's your favorite topic to avoid, just as my Mother is mine, and the Borg are his." She shot Jean-Luc a pointed glance.

To his credit, he sat up a little straighter. But he did as he often did when he wasn't sure what to say -- he said nothing. Shrugged, and sipped the liquor he was swishing around in the glass. 

Kasidy was looking at the floor now too. Sisko smiled at Deanna ruefully. "It's difficult to articulate my feelings about that, when I'm so unclear on what I should think -- it was not something I would ever expect to have to confront. The Bajorans haven't asked me to take on much responsibility, though."

"I don't think I would be very comfortable with someone claiming I was part of their religion, either," Kasidy said sympathetically. 

"Some of us would rather be shot with an arrow, than be considered a religious figure," Deanna said.

"Someday, I might get the story behind some of the things you say," Marius said with a sly look at Jean-Luc.

Deanna finished the chocolate and leaned to put the cup on the coffee table in front of her. "You'll have to give him more whiskey."

"I usually ask couples how they met," Kasidy said. "I suppose that's fairly obvious, given you served on the same vessel."

"The first time I met him was long before that," Deanna said. It surprised Jean-Luc, which meant he didn't remember. She gave him a passive, bland smile.

"You should tell them," he said.

She almost laughed -- he didn't remember, and wanted to know so much that he wanted her to tell them. He was uneasy, but they'd had meals with Sisko on the way here, and perhaps he'd had enough to drink. "I should preface it by saying we specialize in being different."

"Different," Sisko echoed, raising his glass. "Starfleet, where weird is part of the job."

"I met him when my father took me to Earth, to see his family," she said. "Jean-Luc was at the Academy speaking at the commencement. Father wanted to show me around. We ran into him as he was leaving the auditorium."

Jean-Luc was giving her that look of wary dubiousness. He knew her father had died when she was seven.

"And then we met when he spoke at the commencement the second time -- I graduated that year, and then again when I came aboard the _Enterprise_. He was more than a little anxious about that."

"No I wasn't," he chided.

"Then I started wearing something with a less revealing neckline," she said, grinning.

"Here we go again," he exclaimed, waving his hand as if dismissing it.

Marius started his quiet, deep laugh again.

"And then there was this long series of missions, and there were occasions where the improbable and the impossible happened. He started playing poker with us, instead of being all broody and solitary."

"She cheats," he put in, matter-of-factly.

"We all knew the day the alien replaced him with a copy. He started singing drinking songs."

Marius nodded. "The alien replacement -- happens all the time."

The two captains in the room stared at the admiral, and Kasidy gaped. "Really? I mean, I knew Starfleet could be dangerous, but drinking songs?"

That led to general laughter, and more drinks, except for the glass of water Sisko brought for Deanna. She stared into it morosely, wishing for a mai tai, and the baby fluttered around sweetly as if adding insult to injury. "Oh, stop it," she muttered.

"We won't mention the time you stabbed me," Jean-Luc said over the rim of his new glass of whiskey.

"I'm so happy about that," Deanna exclaimed, rolling her eyes and holding her hands out in surrender. "I'm also overjoyed that we're not going to talk about the time Will told you to pick up a hor'ghan for him and you ended up fending off a few hundred women on Risa, during the whole week we talked you into taking off. You could have just told us what happens to you on leave, you know."

"You know," Marius began with a great big grin, "it occurs to me that you probably know enough about each other to blackmail each other into oblivion."

"And that in spite of most of the good stuff protected by the counselor's ethics," Jean-Luc said, surprising her. He was starting to loosen up more, evidently. She settled back in her chair and leveled an amused expression at him, until he noticed. "What?"

"I'm just thinking about the time you came back from a life of piracy. Also the time you saved hostages by quoting poetry. And lately, I find myself missing the captain I used to know, who was so easy to tease. Now you just look at me as if waiting for me to come to my senses."

"I do that a lot," Kasidy said.

"Teasing, or waiting for him to come to his senses?" Marius asked.

Sisko shrugged dramatically. "Both, actually."

"None of this is telling me how you overcame rank and got together," Kasidy exclaimed. "I may not be Starfleet, but I try to run a tight ship, keep everything professional. I've heard about this issue with starship officers, where they decide they can't fraternize with their underlings."

"I can think of a few who missed that memo," Deanna grumbled, drinking her water. When Jean-Luc frowned, she shrugged. "Told you, I don't sense and tell. But there were plenty of liaisons going on -- sometimes with people you would least expect. I'm pretty sure your first officer didn't tell you all about that -- probably because he was the worst offender."

"So much for not telling," Marius said.

"Will is a special case. I feel an obligation to warn people about him."

"You see what they're doing," Kasidy said to Sisko, leaning back against his arm. "That's what you do. Distract me when I start getting too close to the truth."

"You may as well tell them," Jean-Luc said.

"Me? You haven't even told me why you suddenly decided to stop avoiding casual conversation with subordinates."

"Well, there was this counselor who kept telling me I was too isolated, and over-zealous about keeping my distance."

"Right, the one you ignored when she told you the nightmares were a bad sign and had to _threaten_  you with official sanctions to get you to actually come to therapy?"

Jean-Luc had to have drunk more than she'd seen; he was actually grinning at this. "The one with a long track record of kicking my ass, yes."

"So you're masochistic. At least it had nothing to do with how pretty I am," Deanna said with a sigh, rolling her eyes to look at the ceiling.

"I didn't say that...."

Marius was chortling again, and glancing back and forth between them. But Sisko was actually thinking about something else -- the past, if Deanna read his emotional state correctly. There had been plenty of that in her office, over the years. A particular blend of regret, sentimentalism, or sadness, usually followed by a description of the memory that triggered them. When he noticed her gazing at him, he smiled and shook his head as if he'd been caught.

Deanna smiled just as sadly, as weariness overtook her, and she glanced down at the floor.

"You should have stayed in bed," Jean-Luc said, with none of his earlier anger. 

"Hmmm, how many times I said that, after how many surgeries and traumas?"

"Clearly, I've been a terrible example. Come on."

They went through the usual farewells, and Kasidy took her hand briefly with sympathetic eyes and a quiet invitation to lunch the following day, if she had the time. Marius abandoned ship as well and walked with them down the corridor toward the lift. 

"How did it go, Marius?" Deanna asked quietly, as Jean-Luc hovered close behind her. She knew he would understand she meant the meeting with Admiral Ross.

"He was surprised to see me. Nothing seemed amiss."

"I want to meet with him tomorrow afternoon, before we leave the station for Bajor," Deanna said quietly. "I think I will be able to tell -- I have some new information. You will be available?"

Marius smiled happily about that. "Yes, indeed. You just give me a call. I suppose you'll bring your husband along?"

"I don't think I could get him to stay away. I would want him along anyway."

 "I'll contact you tomorrow, then. Sleep well." He turned down a side corridor and they walked on to their quarters in silence.

Jean-Luc couldn't be drunk, she thought, watching him walk into the bedroom ahead of her. She reached up and started to pull off the dress, and he came back from removing his shirt to help her, then stepped in to hold her.

"I love you, too."

Jean-Luc was amused, and starting to leave behind the residual tension from the visit with Sisko. Then, she could tell, something came back to mind -- he kissed her neck, but sidled away and started to undress again. "You didn't meet me when you were five."

"No, I was actually six. I know you don't remember it."

He gave her a look he reserved for wayward ensigns and Ferengi, combined with a nostril flare. "You're trying to tell me that I met you -- "

"Not at all. You met my father, who was wearing a uniform very similar to yours, and at the time going by his birth name, Ian Blackwell. Which he tended to do on Earth. Troi is Mother's name, and when we're on Betazed it's also yours. Legally speaking. I certainly don't expect you to use it, no need to be so upset. I was with him but you were in a hurry so you shook his hand and kept going, didn't give him time to introduce me. And I was excruciatingly shy at that age, anyway."

He went thin-lipped and narrow-eyed. "You keep telling me things, and half the time I have to question -- can we have a conversation about all the things I should know, being your husband? Just so I don't sound like a complete idiot if conversation happens to swing into the realm of Betazoid or Troi facts, so I can be at least somewhat educated about the family I apparently married into?"

She nodded, hanging her head a little. "I'm sorry. I was just having a little fun."

"Not unlike your mother, with her habit of dropping bits of information into casual conversation."

"A little, I suppose. I think most of it is being unsure that the information isn't going to cause... problems."

They climbed in bed together as they talked, and she rolled on her left side -- she'd chosen the side of the bed that would allow her to cuddle while doing that, and rested her cheek on his shoulder. He was quite pleased as he put his arms around her. They were naked as they usually were in bed.

"What problems would it cause?" he said, kissing the top of her head.

"I worry a little, that it would change the way you think about me. And sometimes I don't remember until I'm reminded, like today, thinking about the first time I actually met you. Because I wasn't an empath at that point in my life it's a vague memory." She smiled as his hand moved from her breast to caress her side and slide around her belly.

'You have a sordid past, I have a sordid past."

"So you're going to tell me about all the things you did at the Academy?"

A long, long pause.

"I talked to Beverly, she's forwarding me information so I can treat engrammatic dissociation. Kate has it. I'm going to suggest to her that she spend the time at a resort as well, and when we are on the way back to Earth I'll start the process of removing the ED."

"How will you do that?"

"I did some research on the way here, actually. There isn't a lot of chronic abuse now like there was on Earth, when methodologies were developed to handle severe dissociation, but there are still records -- I'm going to adapt some of the interventions that were used to treat dissociative identity disorder in the twenty-first century."

"That's a relief."

"I had Beverly talk to Elena -- we're going to have a blind man convention and get a real idea of the elephant."

He tensed, and started to think furiously. "I think I need a little more context than you've provided."

"It's an old Indian story, about six blind men and an elephant, with many versions. The one I'd like to work on is where all the blind men who are touching the various parts of the elephant talk together and come to conclusions about the reality of the elephant, how big it is, how it really looks as a whole, instead of only understanding a small piece of it."

"Ah." He continued to mull over that. "So we're going to get people who have been threatened with retribution if they step out of line to talk about their piece of this?"

"Yes, and then we're going to tell all of Starfleet about the entire elephant, so everyone has sufficient information to handle their piece of the problem."

"Deanna...."

"I have been following along with your crazy ideas for years."

"That wasn't what I was going to -- I just wanted to say, that I am proud of you."

"What for?"

"For taking so much initiative with this. You've been the driving force behind solving a problem that's plagued officers for decades, clearly, addressing an issue that's been hidden in the shadows for too long while it eats away at the fabric of the Federation." He moved slightly against her, and brought his right hand up to rest on her hair.

"But you...."

"I suppose you haven't noticed how I've been following your lead most of the time? You've been in command." He spent a moment being smug, while she struggled with the assertion. "You know, we shouldn't talk about this right before you're supposed to go to sleep. I have to wonder if it has something to do with the nightmares."

"It might."

"We should talk about the baby. How's he feeling?"

"The same as he always does. He's serene, and almost asleep. He's perfect."

"Lucas."

She smiled and pushed her face against his shoulder. "Okay."

"Okay?" Jean-Luc grinned, judging from the excitement he felt -- she had her eyes closed.

"If you won't tell me where we're going, can you tell me what we'll do on this vacation?"

"That depends on the doctor's opinion of what you can do. There will be a masseuse, among other pleasantries."

"Perhaps there might be archaeology as well?"

"I wasn't planning everything. I thought I would leave plenty of free time, keep options open."

"I'm looking forward to it."


	62. Go Ahead, Make My Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Between AO3 outages and life, this was a long time in the making. Ugh, what a week.

"Deanna!"

She turned from the viewport, where she'd been watching for the wormhole to open for the past few minutes. "Hello, Ben."

Ben Sisko smiled, as he slowed and came to stand beside her, but she could have seen the nervousness even if she hadn't been aware of it as an empath. "I'm glad to see you're feeling better."

"A good night's sleep works wonders. I've been waiting to see the wormhole. Dr. Bashir cleared me to go on my vacation and do whatever I like, so Jean-Luc is arranging a transport to Bajor."

Ben nodded. "You know, I've appreciated the chance to get to know the two of you."

"Despite your initial misgivings," Deanna added. When he raised both eyebrows, she smiled. "Betazoid Mind Magic, of course. And I have a guess, that it has something to do with Locutus -- he wasn't my favorite either, you know."

Ben harrumphed, and as usual with a human suddenly beset by apprehension, he crossed his arms. "I lost my wife when the _Saratoga_ was destroyed at Wolf 359. I almost lost Jake."

She sighed, and touched his arm. "And I know that it felt like you lost yourself. Not an unusual feeling to have in times of great loss. I've been having nightmares for weeks -- I know that it's common for pregnant women to feel this anxiety, with their first baby, but I doubt they also have assimilation dreams. It's like the dreams are tapping into the most anxiety-provoking period of my life. I remember everyone's pain, from that period of time, but especially his. I remember the recovery -- it took weeks for him to feel halfway like himself. I had to tell the computer to route messages away from him for more than three years, if they contained the word 'Borg' and did not come from a flag officer. He had so much hate mail he didn't deserve."

"I can imagine how angry people were." He sighed, his shoulders sagging just a bit. "I was, too. Irrational as it was."

"It's an understandable anger, though."

"I wanted to ask you about something, now that we have a moment," he said, his emotional state shifting as he prepared to put forth whatever burning question was making him so anxious. "Do you really think there is a conspiracy going on within the Federation? Within Starfleet? I'm struggling to imagine it -- I know there have always been rumors, about Section 31, but there's never been any reason for me to think there was any truth to it."

"There are multiple conspiracies. Leyton was only one."

Ben winced and gestured with his hand as he often did while expressing strong emotion. "I still can't believe he would ever be so -- arrogant. Why anyone would think that would succeed."

Deanna raised her head, raised an eyebrow, and felt her lip twist in that little sarcastic way she'd found herself doing a lot lately. "Oh, well, humans -- not unlike so many species -- are masters of self deception and self aggrandizement. Do you know what I want, more than anything?"

He returned from wandering in frustrated ire, to look at her with an expectant smile.

"I want the Federation to be as advertised," she said quietly, folding her hands in front of her. "I want Starfleet to be what it's purported, and to be able to raise my children honestly, without fear that some thief in the night won't be coming to kill my husband. I want to visit my father's grave and tell him that I was able to protect my mother, so she could be herself again without fear of becoming a casualty of their plotting again."

They stood there for a few moments gazing at each other, as he took that in, processed the implications, and then someone called out, "Captain!"

She turned to look -- a middle-aged man with sparse blond hair in a gold uniform approached. He glanced at her but addressed Sisko. "I would like to speak to you, sir."

Sisko nodded. "This is Commander Troi. Commander, this is Lieutenant-Commander Michael Eddington, security -- he works with the constable."

Deanna gave him a faint smile. Eddington was looking at her now with suspicion, probably thinking he had seen her before -- he had, but she'd been under cover, and no longer had glowing eyes or tattoos.

"The staff meeting starts in fifteen minutes -- I'll meet you in my office in ten," Sisko said, breaking the moment of tension. Eddington nodded and strode off briskly.

"Captain," Deanna said, almost under her breath. "That man is part of the Maquis."

Ben blinked at her. "What?" he spat.

"I saw him while I was on an undercover mission, to recover another officer. He remembers my face but I was surgically altered, that's why he was staring at me that way. He's one of their leaders. There are active duty Starfleet officers operating under cover in the Maquis directing their activities on the behalf of the conspiracies you are doubting exist -- it's one of the reasons I know that there are covert illegitimate agents acting in violation of regulation and the oath we all swore."

"You're sure it was him?"

"As an empath, I have a sense of the individual -- I would recognize you if I were blind. I'm sure it was the same person, yes. He was meeting with four others and discussing plans to raid a Cardassian outpost."

Putting his hands on his hips, he glared at the floor, and glanced up at her again. "You realize --"

"I know you can't act solely on my word," Deanna said. "Jean-Luc never did -- but he would take it into consideration, and investigate. He trusts that I don't speak out of turn, and he knows that I won't say anything unless I believe there's a good reason. I'm only trying to warn you."

Sisko nodded. "I'd like to talk to you later, but I have to go."

"All right. We'll be here until tomorrow morning, I believe. Judging from the frustration he feels, Jean-Luc wasn't able to get passage for us for today."

She watched him hurry away, heading for the lift, and went to the railing -- on the Promenade below, the foot traffic was on the rise. It was nearing lunch time, and people were starting to head into the restaurants.

"There you are!"

Deanna turned to smile at Kasidy -- today she wore a green pantsuit. "I'm watching for the wormhole, or I was."

Kasidy tucked her arm through Deanna's. "How do you feel about Bolian? There's also a Klingon restaurant."

"Something less likely to burn a hole in my stomach?"

They went down to the main level, wandered past restaurants, and chose the Ktarian cafe. It was less busy and noisy than some of the others, which appealed to Deanna, as she was starting to get a headache. They sat in a corner booth and ordered, and Kasidy set aside the menu to face Deanna across the table.

"Where's your husband today?"

"Somewhere on the other end of the Promenade. He may be getting something for lunch. He's hungry."

It took Kasidy a moment to understand it. "Oh, that's right. That must be difficult to get used to," she said at last.

"It can take a while for friends to adjust."

Kasidy leaned, forearms crossed in front of her on the table. "So now that it's just us, can I get the real story?"

"Oh," Deanna said, shaking her head. "It's not that interesting, really. He came in and told me he wanted a new therapist."

It put a long furrow in Kasidy's brow.

"Therapists can't have intimate personal relationships with their clients. It's a bigger deal than captains having relationships with subordinates, actually. He wasn't in therapy, hadn't been for more than a year. I knew his feelings for me were there, long before he did that, but I expected he would do as he'd done before. Not do anything about it. Let the feelings die."

"Oh," Kasidy exclaimed, sitting back in her chair, surprised. "That's... unusual."

It was a reminder, once again, that this was a civilian. "No, it's actually fairly typical -- there are officers who see no issue with relationships, and then there are those who refuse to allow themselves to do that. Sometimes because they had difficulties with such things in the past. He was never one who compromised."

"I wonder what it was that made him see you differently, then?"

The waiter came and put cups in front of them, and departed again. Deanna watched him go and turned back to the conversation. "I don't know. Perhaps he felt he knew me well enough that he could trust me."

"He was so upset when you came in last night after dinner. Are you sure you're all right? He said you've been not sleeping well, having a lot of morning sickness."

"It's hard to go from active and thin to big and slow. I have so much trouble sleeping sometimes. And traveling here was another point of anxiety, since we're well versed in all the things that starships can confront, even in Federation space." Deanna sipped her Tarkalian tea. "Ben said that Jake introduced the two of you?"

"You know, that boy is smart," she exclaimed with a smile. "Too smart for his own good, just like his daddy. Give Jake a few years, he'll be deadly."

"I suspect so. How long have you and Ben...."

"Since last year. No talk of marriage yet -- that's fine, it's going along nicely."

"You've been running cargo for the Bajorans? A lucrative business, I suppose?"

"Yes, it's also let me stay close to home." Kasidy sipped her own tea, and there was something going on emotionally that made no sense to Deanna. She started to feel anxiety, and a little dread.

"We've been on Earth for a while. It was starting to feel like home, though I missed the _Enterprise_ for a long time. Not the undercover work -- everything else."

"Undercover work? I thought you were a counselor," Kasidy exclaimed.

"Being an empath and a commissioned officer leads to such challenges. It was felt my skills made me the best person for the job." Deanna sighed, chewed her lower lip. "It was classified, of course. But it's probably obvious enough -- everyone knows the Demilitarized Zone led to people leaving the Federation's protection. What I didn't realize -- "

She stopped, and looked away across the cafe -- it had done as she'd anticipated, struck that same note of anxiety from before.

"I felt so angry, seeing how people were struggling," Deanna said quietly.

"I know how you feel. People shouldn't be forced to live that way."

"And they shouldn't be pawns, in some conspiracy."

Kasidy's eyes went big. She glanced around, and then leaned forward. "Are you serious?"

Deanna looked down, and waited. The ambiguity wasn't protection -- it was a game, and it could backfire. But she thought Kasidy was too sympathetic and at risk for getting caught up in the Maquis. "I don't envy anyone posted out here. I'm looking forward to going home to my son."

"Are you saying that the Maquis are some sort of -- "

"I should never have mentioned anything. Please let's talk about something else."

Kasidy gazed into her cup. "I've been approached."

Deanna stared across the table -- it was enough to catch Kasidy's attention, and they looked at each other for a long moment.

"I hope you don't. You and Ben are good together. He's a Starfleet officer -- I'd hate to see you lose each other."

Their food came. Deanna's rice dish turned out to be very bland indeed, but she ate it anyway. Kasidy had a bowl of something fragrant and steaming, that smelled so much better that Deanna decided to order it if she were still hungry after finishing what she had.

"I guess you might be back on a starship soon? Something he said over dinner sounded like it was likely," Kasidy asked, in a more normal tone of voice.

"There are some captains who do better on ship duty. I'm not sure he would be happy as an admiral. But we may consider other options."

"You mean... leaving Starfleet?"

"He's a fair archaeologist. We have a house waiting for us, in France, as well -- making wine is a family endeavor. I'm not sure this war is the best place for either of us, for a lot of reasons." Deanna picked up her cup to wash down some of the dry rice dish." It depends on how he feels when we get back from vacation. The next _Enterprise_ is likely to be offered to him within a month or so. He's worried about the baby, but I know it will all be different starting the moment he's born. It's not the same."

"That's what I've heard. I haven't known many people who have had babies."

Deanna smiled happily, thinking about the babies born on the _Enterprise_. And that inevitably led to her own experience, and Ian, which led to sadness -- one of the earlier nightmares had been so cruel as to re-create that experience, only with the baby she was legitimately gestating rather than popping out a miracle child within a day.

"Deanna?"

"It's nothing, really. Old trauma. I'm sorry."

But Kasidy put down her utensil, and folded her hands in her lap, waiting.

"I had a child, before. I lost him when he was small."

"No wonder you're having so much anxiety," Kasidy exclaimed, leaning to touch her arm. When Deanna tilted her head in confusion, she continued. "Jean-Luc actually mentioned the anxiety last night -- Marius asked about it, if you were feeling less anxious."

"I'm usually fine...." Until they were both asleep. She frowned, thinking about that more. "I think there might be something to this. I think I'm having nightmares because I use my sense of Jean-Luc as a buffer, and can't do that when he's asleep. That helps, actually."

"Well, good. I hope you can get some real rest while you're on Bajor."

"So do I." Deanna spent a few minutes feeling quite awkward about this. Conversations with new friends should be easier than this. She knew how to do chitchat, it just felt so inane, superficial, reminded her of her mother, and she found herself missing Beverly, who had a knack for superficial conversation. Then again, Kasidy wasn't a typical Federation citizen, either.

A shadow fell over them, and they both looked up at a woman in a Starfleet uniform -- a Trill, Deanna noted, and a very happy one.

"Jadzia," Kasidy exclaimed. "This is Deanna Troi. Picard?"

"Both, depending. You must be Lieutenant-Commander Dax. Would you like to join us?"

"Oh, yes," Jadzia exclaimed, pulling over a chair from the nearest table and sitting with her hands steepled, her elbows on the table. "I was hoping I would get a chance to meet you before you left the station. Ben said after the meeting that you were meeting Kasidy for lunch -- I hope I'm not being horribly intrusive, just showing up this way, but I really, really hoped to talk to you."

This was a little more enthusiasm than Deanna expected a teenaged boy to whip up in a Starfleet officer with more than three hundred years of combined experience. "I'm glad that I was able to meet you as well," she replied calmly. "I don't often meet joined Trill. I find it fascinating, sensing the melange of emotional fluctuations between host and symbiont." The slightly-intrusive comment was a probe, to see whether Jadzia would be a questioner or an observer. Rude, by human standards, but this was no human.

"Well... that's probably almost as much a point of curiosity with people as your abilities as a Betazoid can be for you," Jadzia said, waving away the waiter when he hovered. "Ben mentioned you were indisposed -- I'm glad you're feeling better. Is this your first child?"

Deanna stared at the Trill without smiling. Kasidy started to feel a different kind of anxiety than before.

"You're right," Jadzia said, chastised, glancing down. "I'm being nosy. I almost feel like we know each other... they talked about you, last night."

It was, Deanna thought, mostly Jadzia at the moment -- Dax certainly must be more sedate. "I'm sure they did. It's easier for Jean-Luc to talk about me than it is to talk about himself."

Jadzia smiled at that. "I could tell he was worried about you. In fact, he's obviously completely focused on you. I just -- I've met Captain Picard before, while I was still Curzon Dax. I thought he was one of the most intelligent, respectful men I'd ever met -- now that I'm female again I have to confess, I was interested... but just until I found out he'd gotten married, mind you."

"You and everyone else," Deanna muttered, thinking about Vash, and all the various females encountered who were interested in passing, since their return to Earth.

"Dax," Kasidy began, hesitantly, but the Trill started to speak again.

"You were his counselor, he said. But not any more?"

"Not right now. At the moment I am on leave, and waiting for a transport to Bajor."

"I thought about psychology at one point. But I don't remember why I didn't pursue it. Jake mentioned you practice mok'bara?"

"I learned from our Klingon security officer, before he died in the line of duty. I continued to practice with some of the crew after he was gone. Why?"

The calmly-spoken question seemed to jar the Trill from her pursuit of the satisfaction of the intense curiosity she felt, and she calmed herself. Giving her head a shake and smiling sheepishly, she said, "Curzon was fond of the Klingons -- fought side by side with them, drank with them, and so I've practiced some on a holosuite myself. I guess you might not be in the mood... I don't think anyone mentioned you were pregnant, while we were having dinner."

Deanna finally smiled, a bit. "I've been lectured on stepping back the intensity of my exercise regimen, for now. Perhaps we could spar sometime after the baby is born."

"You must be so excited," Jadzia exclaimed, grinning. And then Deanna sensed the shift -- the symbiont. "Audrid, my fourth host -- she loved having children. And Emony also had children... it can take so much out of you, but it's so rewarding."

"Do you plan to have children?" Deanna asked.

Jadzia tilted her head thoughtfully. "Maybe. Not now -- there's too much going on, too much to do." She gazed at Deanna seriously, and her mood shifted to the serious. "Deanna, when I spoke to Ben shortly after you were all dropped off by the _Bellerophon_ yesterday, he seemed a bit more agitated than usual, but wouldn't talk about it. Did something happen on the way here?"

"Well, there was the matter of Admiral Leyton. As I understand it he called Ben to come to Earth and then attempted to stage a coup, relying entirely on the loyalty of his former subordinates for support."

"I suppose," Jadzia said slowly, but it was clear she thought there was more going on. She glanced at Kasidy, at their empty dishes, and seemed to regroup. "You know, we could go down to Quark's for a drink, if you like. I could talk you into a game of dabo."

"I wouldn't mind a cup of raktajino," Kasidy exclaimed.

They went down to Quark's at a stroll, and Deanna found herself walking between the two chatting women. She'd worn a layered outfit, a dress with a heavier emerald velour over a thinner white slip, and even so she felt cold. Quark's was even colder than the Promenade, she noticed, as they entered the bar. She tried not to look at the Ferengi behind the bar -- Quark had tried to sell her some overpriced jewelry the last time she was here. Jean-Luc thought about her -- his emotions came through more strongly to her, when he did that, and it led to thinking about him, which in turn led to sharing thoughts -- it helped that he was near, and getting closer all the time.

They sat at a table for four, and Deanna smiled at the fidgety little Ferengi waiter who stammered a question about what they wanted, and ordered Toras Nectar, and then had to explain it was a Betazoid drink.

Jadzia turned an enthusiastic and warm smile on her the instant the waiter trotted away. "So are you staying around the station for a while? Maybe we should throw a party -- I bet you're one of those quiet girls who loves a good party."

"I have a feeling you're right -- it's the quiet ones that surprise you," Kasidy said with a grin.

"Why don't you ask my husband about that?" she said, as he arrived -- she knew he was coming up behind her. Jadzia's smile doubled in intensity and Kasidy was watching him over Deanna's shoulder, but Deanna didn't turn to look.

"Am I interrupting?"

At that, she turned to look up at him, and they exchanged a happy smile, and a few more thoughts as to what he had done that morning, and what the afternoon might hold in store.

"Have a seat, Captain," Jadzia exclaimed happily.

He was already in motion to take the seat on Deanna's left, dropping a bag on the floor between their chairs, and gave the Trill a curious glance, but his attention went to the waiter who fidgeted over upon seeing a new customer. Still out of uniform -- though the slacks were suspiciously similar to the black uniform pants. The dark burgundy shirt he wore had an open collar.

"Jadzia was about to talk Deanna into a party. There's nothing Jadzia appreciates more than a good party," Kasidy said, raising her glass to her lips.

"Really? How would Jadzia do that?" He shot a knowing smile at Deanna.

"She thinks I'm quiet, but a closet party animal," Deanna said.

"That wouldn't be my assumption, based on the parties we've been to."

"We are very similar in that regard." Deanna smiled at him. "You were unfortunately contractually bound as captain of the vessel to be the middle of everything. I expect no one bothered to tell you there would be a day in your honor, when you were a cadet."

"That would necessitate time travel, since you made up that holiday." He was laughing with her, but trying to scowl about it.

"My original idea was to have it every month, so you were fortunate to get away with an annual holiday."

He did scowl at that -- she was instigating, again. She noticed their audience watching them with amused expressions and settled down. Rather than continue to amuse them, Jean-Luc watched the fidgeting Ferengi carefully put a glass in front of him, bow, and scurry away again.

"You don't like Ferengi, do you?" Jadzia commented.

"He's very anxious, it makes me anxious," Deanna said.

"Oh, Rom's all right -- his brother yells at him if he isn't working constantly to make the bar profitable," Jadzia exclaimed. "He's just generally nervous."

"From what Ben was saying, the station's full of unique characters," Jean-Luc said.

"It's an interesting place to be, all in all -- between the possibility of war and the wormhole, and the adventures we've had on the other side...." Jadzia fit in Starfleet well -- she had all the enthusiasm Deanna remembered from every career officer, ever, and plenty of fascination. Not unlike her husband, when she'd met him.

"Have you ever thought of joining Starfleet, Kasidy?" Deanna asked. "You could have a starship."

 "Oh -- I think I'm better off being independent," she exclaimed, waving a hand dismissively. "I like being my own boss. I can choose what cargo I don't want to carry, what's too much risk to bear."

Jean-Luc had a few thoughts about that, and kept a benign smile in place while he thought them. Deanna gave him a sidelong glance and picked up her Tarkalian tea.

"But there's a certain thrill, to knowing you have the firepower and the crew, and the maneuverability, and the training...." Jadzia was giving Jean-Luc a knowing smirk.

"It's true that the position comes with a great deal of power, and you're given a large degree of latitude, in some matters," he said quietly. "The adventure is a definite draw, particularly if you love the mysterious. But in other respects...." He dropped his gaze, and thought about the baby. There was such a bittersweet quality to the way he felt that it took effort for Deanna to not respond to it overtly.

"I know the fleet will miss you," Jadzia said.

Jean-Luc raised his eyes to give the Trill a dubious look.

"I think what he isn't saying, really, is that being shot, stabbed, impaled, assimilated, shocked, possessed, declared dead, conscripted, stolen or imprisoned and tortured -- it all grows old fairly quickly, when you're not twenty-two and made of solid duranium." Deanna smiled fondly at the glare he gave her.

"You said I wasn't old."

"Yes. That somehow hasn't kept you from feeling that way, often."

"Old is relative," he said, looking again at Jadzia.

"Yes," she exclaimed with a grin. She was a beautiful woman, certainly. Probably enough to turn his head if things were different, but he turned away instead, smiling at Deanna.

"A lot of things can make us feel old," Kasidy said. "Those dabo girls, for example -- they make me feel old." She gestured vaguely in the direction of the dabo table, where an alien of some sort was glaring at a pretty girl in a skimpy outfit as she spun the wheel.

Deanna leaned forward and hunched slightly, shifting position for the thousandth time that day. With the sensitivity he'd developed to the most minute of changes in her posture, it brought Jean-Luc to attention; he watched her for a few seconds. Deanna smiled and shrugged sheepishly. "I'm sorry, Kasidy, I'm just not comfortable sitting here for this long. Some days I get these strange muscle cramps."

"We have that meeting in an hour, perhaps you should go rest before we do that," Jean-Luc said.

The other two women watched them go sympathetically after they said their good-byes and left the table. Kasidy waved to the waiter, to pay the bill. Deanna walked with her husband back through the station, thinking about their situation.

"Marius is supposed to meet us outside his quarters, before we go meet with Ross," Jean-Luc said as they approached their own door.

"You were talking to him earlier."

"Among other people, yes. Did you manage to sleep in at all?"

"Not really. I went to the Promenade about an hour after you left me. Watched the wormhole open -- but I only saw it once. When I was talking to Kasidy I realized that part of the problem with the nightmares might be that you're asleep." The rest of the theory she provided by thinking about it, that being part of the reason she believed it.

He turned around, in the middle of the room, to smile and take her hands in his. "So I have to stay awake all night?"

"No. It may be that a sedative could make a difference, or an anti-anxiety medication."

"Or take turns?" He pulled her into his arms. "I know the doctor said you could do as you wished, but I hope you take advantage of the time we have to get as much rest as possible. It's why I asked him about the inhibitor."

"I know. Thank you, for coming to find me. It was starting to become obvious that I was tired, and not quite up to socializing." Leaning against him led her to realize how cold she'd been. Which led to his recognizing that from her shiver, and reaching down into the bag he'd been carrying, to bring out a folded blanket -- he tossed it over her shoulders. She sat on the couch, wrapping herself up in the thick, plush blanket, while he went to replicate hot tea. "This is a beautiful blanket."

"You've been cold a lot, since we got here. I think they have difficulty managing the temperature on the station." He brought the tea service back to sit with her, and started to make her the herbal tea she liked. "Jadzia is an interesting person."

"She admires you a great deal." When he gave her a chiding look, she smiled. "By admire, I really mean she thinks you're attractive. She remembers the previous host meeting you -- Curzon Dax, you may remember him?"

"Curzon -- yes, he was a prominent member of the diplomatic corps. He was one of the diplomats we transported.... You mean -- Deanna," he scolded, frowning over the cup he held in front of him.

"She said it. If you weren't married, she'd be interested. Why would that be so surprising to you?"

He adopted that resigned, semi-amused, somewhat-embarrassed expression that he usually had, when confronted with reminders of something he didn't like talking about. "Are you warm enough?"

"I am. It really is a lovely blanket -- though I wouldn't expect gray. It's so soft, I wonder what it's made of?"

"I didn't ask. I think it must be synthetic. As long as it's keeping you warm," he said, stroking her shoulder. "When we go see Ross, do you want to take the lead?"

"Actually... I'd rather you did. I'd like to focus on what I sense from him."

They spent some time working out what to ask Ross, how to approach him, and what not to ask. "You're sure you can reverse the condition?" Jean-Luc said at last.

"I'm not, but we don't have many alternatives. Now that we know there's one confirmed case -- "

"We've confirmed the presence of many others," Jean-Luc added grimly. He studied her, wrapped up inside the blanket, and reached over to lean against her, his arm around her. "It occurs to me that this pregnancy will start to be more and more difficult."

"Only because Beverly made you read about pregnancy."

He snorted. "I probably would have, anyway. You've been crying a lot more."

That was enough to make her start -- and then she laughed at herself, even while she wiped away the tears with the corner of the blanket. "We'll get through it. I need to talk to Beverly again, before we leave the station, and Alexander. He should be at the beach today with his grandparents."

"Plenty of time for that. Deanna... are you not telling me everything? You have to let me help you."

"You know about the nightmares. You know I'm not comfortable sitting in one place for long, that I have difficulty meditating. You know he's kicking around, and that he's progressing faster than Beverly expected -- I think what I'm struggling with the most is that I'm having to face the possibility that all that we're doing, against _them_ , isn't likely to be enough."

"But it has to be. You know that we can't just do nothing at all, if we can do something."

Deanna smiled radiantly at him, raising her head, and leaned to kiss him. He was thinking about more than the lazy, affectionate kiss, but all too soon pulled away from her and took her arm as they rose from the couch. It was almost time to meet Marius, so she let the blanket drop to the couch. "Let's go meet him. Get this over with."

"Want a coat?"

"The chill isn't as bad when I'm walking."

Marius was coming out of his quarters when they arrived. "How are you, my dear?" he exclaimed, touching her sleeve.

"I'm doing well -- are you ready? Jean-Luc will be taking the lead, at least at first."

"I had anticipated you had a plan." Marius walked with them back toward the main corridor, turning the corner toward the lift.  

"What do you intend to do while we are on vacation?" Deanna asked, irritated to find that her hands had taken up their usual positions on either side of her belly.

"Check in with some of the other space stations. Take a tour of them. See if there are any reasons to suspect anyone's been compromised."

"It sounds like you will be quite busy -- there were a number of outposts established out here in the past year," Jean-Luc said quietly as they entered the lift. There was already someone in it, a Bajoran, and the short-haired woman smiled at Marius and Jean-Luc. "Major Kira," Jean-Luc said. "You left after dinner last night before Deanna came in -- this is my wife, Commander Deanna Troi." 

"A pleasure to meet you," the major exclaimed. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to stick around last night. There was a situation."

"There are always situations," Deanna said with a smile.

"I bet it was something to do with that Ferengi bartender," Marius said. "Shifty fellow."

Kira furrowed her brow at him. "Actually, it did. Quark is a pretty typical Ferengi, he's all right most of the time, but once in a while.... But we still manage to spend quite a bit of time in his bar. I'm going tonight with Jadzia after shift, if you want to join us. Miles and Julian are probably going to play darts, and Quark actually might have something interesting going on -- he was talking about something he got in the last few days, that he's having Chief O'Brien install for him this afternoon."

"We'll see how it goes. It depends on whether Deanna is up to it," Jean-Luc said. Kira smiled as her eyes inevitably dropped to Deanna's belly, as the lift lurched to a halt. Fortunately, Kira nodded and left the lift then -- as it shuddered back into motion, Deanna's tears started again. Sympathy from both men did not help at all. She regained control by the time it stopped again and they proceeded down the corridor to where Admiral Ross waited for them in a conference room.

The admiral didn't appear to be suspicious, from the casual way he rose to greet them, but Deanna sensed the immediate tension. "Captain Picard. Admiral Beaumont. And Commander Troi -- come in, come in," he exclaimed, waving at the chairs around the round table he occupied. He raised eyebrows as Jean-Luc pulled out a chair for her, and then sat next to her.

"Thank you for seeing us," Jean-Luc said.

"I'm a little surprised you're here, Marius," Ross said as the other admiral sauntered over to sit down.

"It's been a long time since I've been out this way. I'm hearing a lot of rumors in addition to the reports you send, and I also wanted to see this station, talk to the Bajorans myself -- and so when Jean-Luc happened to be along for the ride on leave, asking me questions, I told him he should talk to you. So here we are."

"Yes, so he said -- you were asking about postings aboard bases?"

It was the pretext he'd used to ask for the meeting -- Jean-Luc glanced at Deanna, and turned back to Ross. "I'm reticent to have a family along on a starship."

"Oh,' Ross said, startled. Then again, louder, with a grin and a glance at Deanna, "Oh! I see. Well. I may have one available, soon. Hartman is about to take a promotion. I would have expected you to do the same, you know."

"I'm considering it."

"Well, don't consider too long, opportunities don't just fall off trees."

Jean-Luc settled in for the first real question. "I'm hearing some things about the Maquis. Rumors, I suppose, but -- "

Ross shook his head in disbelief. "You know people will talk. It doesn't mean anything."

Deanna shifted in her chair, as the baby started to flail. "I'm all right," she said quietly, and settled back again while she informed Jean-Luc silently that Ross was lying, and knew more than they did.

"Deanna was on a mission -- you remember that, I believe," Jean-Luc said. "I know that she returned feeling unsettled -- she wasn't able to tell me everything, of course, but she doesn't rattle so easily as that. In trying to make this decision, I need more information about this issue."

"I can understand your wanting to make sure you're taking your family into a less dangerous situation -- "

"I think it's more a matter of knowing what we're getting into," Deanna said. Immediately, she regretted that. Ross stared at her for a moment, full of suspicion and concern, and she communicated to Jean-Luc that he was apparently not remembering she was an empath, or perhaps not caring, and had started to be wary. She continued as if nothing had happened, to make sure he didn't notice her reaction to him. "There isn't a posting in Starfleet that doesn't entail some risk, after all. Admirals merely take different kinds of risks."

"True enough. From what you told us in your debriefing, I think it's easy for me to guess the cause of this anxiety," Admiral Ross said, in the practiced, calm manner of an admiral accustomed to reassuring others. "I can see how you might assume being this close to the Badlands and the Demilitarized Zone might mean you'll have trouble, but the starbases along the zone have Starfleet traffic, not public transports or traders that might conceal smuggling operations."

Deanna nodded slowly. "Admiral, thank you. I just have one more question, if you'll indulge me. Do you know what engrammatic disassociation is?"

She was ready and waiting, so sensing the shift when it came was easy to do. His eyes went wide, his head came up ever so slightly. "I beg your pardon?"

Deanna gazed at him solemnly and repeated the question, as if asking how a client feels. Perhaps this side of him would have an answer. On either side of her, Marius and Jean-Luc sat, rigid and ready to move.

Ross simply stared at her, angry and doing his best to keep a straight face in spite of it.

Deanna began to glare at him. "Admiral?"

"Don't," he said, low and even.

"They've done it to you, you know," she replied, in the same low tone.

Ross came forward with a jerk, stopped himself, and leaned, gripping the edge of the table. "What did you say?"

"Just now you bridged from one ego state into another. Did I ask you the question once, or twice? You remember once. They remember twice. When you shift back you will still remember once."

"No," he snarled, rising.

Marius raised his bulk from the chair and crossed his arms, and glared. "Sit," he ordered, with all the gravitas that a career officer could have.

Ross was in a state of disbelief and rage, but however they had done this to him, he remained in control. "You don't know what you're doing here."

"No need to be so angry, you know. We're hardly the only ones who know." Deanna channeled her mother at her most imperious, down to the superior curl of the lip -- sitting stiffly with her hands in her lap, glaring up at Ross.

"Don't threaten me," he snapped, starting to crack. As his emotions swung to a new high, Deanna shot up from the chair, tipping it over, and stood there -- she realized she'd fallen into the familiar stance of a mok'bara practitioner, knees slightly bent, right foot forward.

It was a tense moment, or ten. The four of them were frozen together, as they were, Jean-Luc still seated and leaning slightly forward as if he'd caught himself in the act of jumping out of his chair.

"Admiral Ross," Deanna said pleasantly.

To her surprise, it worked. She could tell -- the angry self shifted away, and Ross seemed to shake himself. At once Marius dropped his rigid stance and took a step, dropped a hand on Ross' shoulder, smiled. "Bill," he said.

"Marius. Want something to drink?"

"Certainly," Marius said lightly. As Ross turned away Marius gave Deanna a serious look.

"Thank you for being willing to talk with us," Deanna said, "we appreciate the opportunity."

"Yes," Jean-Luc said, rising at last and putting a hand in the small of her back. "I'll let you know our decision."

Ross was at the replicator, as they left the room. Marius came as far as the door, stood in it, gave them a nod. "Thank you. I shall talk to you shortly?"

"We'll be in our quarters," Deanna said.

 It was a quiet walk back to their guest quarters, and Jean-Luc stared for a moment at the cylinder on the table in front of the couch. The pale blue glow from the upper third of the cylinder told them it was still creating a dampening field. 

"I wanted to think it wasn't true," he said at last. She understood his anxiety -- the admiral in charge of Starfleet operations in the sector where the wormhole was, where the Cardassians and Maquis were most active, being compromised -- it meant that the problem could be more widespread and pervasive than they thought.

"One step at a time. The next few steps should reach farther and have greater effect than our efforts to reach a single person at a time."

He kept frowning, and the way he was sitting, facing away from the bank of lights on the ceiling, put his face half in shadow. "I can't see myself taking you and the children anywhere in this."

Deanna stopped pacing restlessly around the room, coming to sit next to him, running a hand down the back of his head. "Jean-Luc."

It brought his attention back from the thousand-parsec stare at nothing, and put a smile on his lips -- a grim one, but at least it was a smile. "I know. We'll know more, after Marius completes a full investigation. He may not be touring anywhere -- there may be plenty to do right here."

"I hope the investigation is successful. I hope Ross gets the help he needs and we figure out how to remove engrammatic disassociation."

He settled back on the couch, and held out his arm -- she settled back with him and sighed as he pulled up the blanket around her shoulders and they rested together for a while. Predictably, the annunciator went off.

Deanna sat up, rearranged the blanket around herself, and turned with a smile as Jean-Luc let Marius in. The admiral had a grim set to his mouth as he strode in and perched on the edge of the chair. "I was able to arrange for him to return to Earth without too much suspicion on his part. And then I went to contact Elena directly, discuss it with her, put Darius on the job of collecting records and statements from staff who have worked directly with Ross for the past few years. I'm afraid, my dear, that you will have to play a role in the process, when you return from your leave."

"I understand, Admiral."

Marius nodded slowly. "I have to commend you, for your persistence in this."

Deanna smiled fondly at him. "I appreciate that you've trusted us as much as you have. Thank you, for being willing to do something."

"If you think about it, that's more to do with you than anything else. It's reassuring to know we're not alone in being willing to stand up against such a threat." Marius grinned suddenly. But even though he quickly stifled a chuckle, his turn of mood was too ebullient for her to let him get away with not saying anything about it.

"Marius?"

"It's nothing," he said. But she exchanged glances with Jean-Luc, who was as curious as she, and gave him an incredulous look. Marius sighed heavily. "It just occurred to me that given the tenacity and the optimism the two of you have, the baby will be a force to be reckoned with, certainly."

Deanna lost most of her smile. "It is my intent to make it possible for our children to live the lives they wish to, rather than be forced to the dubious ends of others who lack the ability to take the moral, less ruthless route to the Federation's goals."

"Make it so," Jean-Luc muttered softly.


	63. The Opposite of Joy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *humming 'Back in the Saddle Again'*
> 
> A casual reading will quickly reveal why the muse decided to take flight for a while. But we're back, and the story shall wind onward to its destined end.

"MOM!"

Alexander almost knocked her over, throwing his arms around her and squeezing -- she yelped, and he backed off. Jean-Luc intervened with a hand to the boy's shoulder.

"Let's be careful -- she's not feeling well," he said. To be exact she felt bloated and nauseated and sore, from head to toe -- quite a contrast to how she had expected to feel coming back from a lovely, relaxing vacation, but it hadn't been that relaxing.

It had started after a week of sleep, massage, meditation and the hot spring, with a return of the morning sickness with a vengeance, and after four days Jean-Luc had taken her to a Bajoran hospital, where he quickly got a lesson in the difference between a sickbay and a civilian facility on a foreign world. Bajoran doctors had no real insight into Betazoid physiology, let alone hybrid Betazoid physiology, nor was their medical technology up to Starfleet standards. Returning to Deep Space Nine had been the next step, where Dr. Bashir had kept her in sickbay for a full day. It wasn't anything specific, he said, treating the symptoms and giving her rest was all that could be done. He noted that anxiety and heightened neurotransmitter activity was creating most of her difficulty with mood swings. So they came home, bringing Kate Pulaski with them, after she spent her time on the space station playing dom-jot with Jadzia. The Starfleet staff had accepted the responsibility of simultaneously watching their 'friend' to keep her from escaping as well as keep her from being taken by her former compatriots. The engrammatic disassociation problem was clear -- one could not trust those that suffered from it, nor completely blame them for their behavior.

"What's wrong?" Alexander asked, looking her up and down. Helena came over then, from the living room where she and Sergei were hanging back to let him greet them, and put her hand on Alexander's shoulder.

"Pregnancy sometimes makes a woman feel this way, _tigryonak_. You listen to your stepfather, treat her sweetly."

"Did you have fun with your grandparents?" Deanna asked, striving for interested and lively, but managing only to sound as though she might not have slept for a week. "Come here, he's kicking -- you can feel it."

Alexander stared at her as if she'd just told him she was having the baby, with an open mouth and wide eyes. He held up both hands to her left side where she was pointing, and gently laid them against her -- when the baby moved against her Alexander leaped away, bumping into Helena.

"It's okay," Helena crooned. "All babies do that. You did that, before you were born."

"Does it hurt?"

Deanna smiled at him. "I'm very tired, and everything hurts because I've been walking too much and sitting in uncomfortable chairs. Helena, Sergei -- I'm so glad you came. I'm so sorry, but I really need to rest."

"Alexander, can you get the bags?" Jean-Luc said, taking her by the shoulders and guiding her along toward the bedroom.

He settled her in the large bed in the master bedroom and she was left alone for a while, as the Rozhenkos said their good-byes to Alexander and departed. Then Kate finally arrived -- she'd taken her own taxi so she could pick up something, taking Mike and Leila with her so she wasn't isolated and without backup.

Data would be arriving shortly, as would Geordi. The admiral would follow when she could. The code words had been uttered, the troops were amassing. Jean-Luc had the summary of Deanna's plan to address engrammatic disassociation, the conclusions she had come to that represented the start of their attempt to rescue agents of the grand sweeping conspiracy from themselves.

Deanna had never felt so miserable in her life.

The muscles along her belly were stretching, her skin covered with stretch marks, the baby growing at a rapid pace that she wasn't physically able to keep up with. Pain had set in for good. Every step strained in places she had never known existed deep inside her abdomen, low along both sides. The belly band worked for a while but started to bind and restrict after too long. Her ankles had swollen leaving her with a limited choice in shoes. Knowing that there were at least two months left of pregnancy, if not three, filled her with dread. She found herself not caring at all, about anything, and between the nightmares and the ongoing ache she wanted nothing more than to be left alone. Except she didn't want that at all -- Jean-Luc had left her one time, while they were on Bajor, left her in the hospital to go arrange transportation back to the station thanks to an outage in their communication system that forced him to find a working public terminal. He'd appealed directly to Sisko and the captain had sent a runabout for them, thankfully, as by the time Jean-Luc returned for her she was a wreck, sobbing and out of her head with anxiety.

She came awake suddenly, not remembering or realizing she had fallen asleep, from a dream in which she fled masked people who wanted to steal her children. Gasping, she tried to sit up, but Jean-Luc was there, speaking reassurances, as was Beverly. And she couldn't sense a thing.

"We can't keep giving her inhibitor," Beverly was saying. "After a few doses it gives her a massive rebound headache. She can't keep taking it forever."

"She was screaming in her sleep," Kate exclaimed. "Look at her psylosynine levels -- all of her neurotransmitters are off the charts, she's sensing things in her sleep and it's going to wear her out. We should consider removing the baby to an incubator and letting her recover from the pregnancy."

"No," Deanna cried. She started to flail and attempt to get out of bed. Arms went around her, strong and insistent and inviting rebellion against the attempt to contain her but she found herself responding to the reassurance that came with them.

"Deanna," Jean-Luc whispered in her ear. Something about this wasn't right. It came to her that he was actually in bed with her, holding her as if he wouldn't have done if there weren't some compelling reason for it given there were multiple people present, including Alexander -- he was in front of her, crying, holding her hand in his strong almost bone-breaking grip.

It was unfathomable -- she closed her eyes and buried her face in the pillow. Thought about Jean-Luc and disappointment, and not wanting to face Captain Picard when she was so incoherent, and not wanting to feel like such a failure as a mother -- this wasn't what Alexander needed, it would only hurt him more just seeing her this way, she'd left him and gone away to Deep Space Nine -- why hadn't she just stayed home? Why did she have to make this mistake -- thinking she could solve this problem of people who thought they could solve the Federation's problems by taking away freedom of people who were just tools to them? All the righteous indignation in the galaxy shouldn't have swayed her from focusing on what she should have done, taken care of the little boy as she had promised Worf. If she had only stuck with motherhood.

They were still arguing, but she couldn't quite make out the words. And then her back was suddenly exposed to air, cooling rapidly in a few seconds before covers were laid over her. Then a smaller body moved in close in front of her -- Alexander. He burrowed in her arms and curled up with her. "I'll take care of you, Mom. It'll be okay."

"I'll be fine," she choked. Because he needed her to be fine.

Everything would be fine.

She awakened again -- how much time had passed, what had happened while she'd been out, issues quickly set aside in favor of the more compelling question of where she was and why she was cold. She felt like she'd been drugged unconscious for an extended period -- it was a peculiar feeling of fuzziness and an odd taste in the mouth that made her think that must be the case. And complete numbness of the empathy told her that she had been given a large dose of inhibitor recently. 

The bed she was in was not her own. She sat up slowly, carefully, recognizing that she was now in a shapeless white gown, her hair loose around her in an untamed mess of waves and curls -- longer than it had been before.

The room was small, square and white -- bare floor, bare walls, no windows. The narrow bed was neither Starfleet, nor Betazoid, nor Terran in design -- she'd never been anywhere with such minimal design. The thin pillow hardly had any cushion to it. 

There was another one just like it parallel to hers, and she realized that someone was on that bed under the thin pretense of a blanket, exactly like the one she had just left on her bed. She moved achingly slow to stand -- her legs felt weak as if she hadn't used them in a long time. She tried to ignore the way her body felt -- the pain in her abdomen and the odd feeling of the baby dangling out from her body made her aware, suddenly, that her son was much heavier than he had been before, bigger, and she had to call on her most professional self to push back rising anxiety and reach for the shoulder of the person in the bed.

The blanket had been pulled all the way up over her head, but as Deanna rolled the person over on her back she was shocked to find that she was in the little white room with no door with Beverly. The doctor awakened immediately, and rolled toward her -- they were both in the same shapeless gown and barefoot.

"You're awake," Beverly exclaimed, greatly relieved and happy to see her. She threw her arms around Deanna and she reciprocated, holding each other tightly. And then Beverly turned her head until her nose pressed against Deanna's ear. In a very, very quiet whisper, she said, "Don't talk openly. Don't ask questions beyond the obvious. They're listening to everything."

"I feel so... odd. Confused." Deanna let them tears come then. "It hurts, why? Where are we? What's going on? Where is Alexander and Jean-Luc? Is this a hospital?"

"Let's get you back on the bed, let me check you over, all right?" Beverly eased her back up and even supported the baby in her hands for a moment, then felt around briefly. "You're probably about to deliver. He appears to be dropping."

" _What?_  How is that possible?" Deanna's hands went to her sides. The baby's foot was right there, a bump against the wall of her abdomen. 

"You've been out for a month and a half. Don't worry, I'll take care of everything, you'll be all right."

"I want -- "

A flicker drew her attention -- on the floor between the beds, a tray materialized. A plate of food, a cup, a variety of medical implements and a small pile of linens were arranged on it. Beverly picked up the tray and moved it to her bed, and brought over the cup. "Here, have some water. Are you hungry?"

"No," she said, thinking it was strange that she wasn't. But somehow she had been seen to, for the weeks she had no awareness of doing any of the usual things herself -- she wasn't having to pee, though there was no small amount of pressure down there -- "Beverly, what's happening? Where are we?"

"I don't know any of that. We've been fed and taken care of, though, and I've been taking care of you. They beam in whatever we need. I don't understand why you've been kept unconscious for so long but -- okay, okay, take a deep breath," she crooned, as a pain gripped her in a vise and she winced and hugged herself. "You'll be all right. Looks like you came out of it to go into labor."

"But -- "

"Shhh," Beverly said, leaning in, looking her in the eye, smoothing her hair out of her face. "Let's just focus on right now. All right?"

It did not feel all right. It did not feel remotely right, in any way. Though there were injections that took the edge off, Deanna did not feel anything but pain and tearing and somewhere in the hours of being adrift in a sea of misery of being there without Jean-Luc the inhibitor started to wear off, and then she knew what Beverly was keeping so carefully in check -- her friend was terrified. The baby was distressed, feeling pressure, and then he finally emerged to the cold sting of air -- a weak crying, and Beverly making baby-soothing noises, reached her through the haze of feeling as though nothing at all could be real about this. 

She held the baby at last, numbly, after he was placed in her arms wrapped in a blanket. She looked at his pointed head and reddened skin, and when he blinked a little, at his dark eyes -- something in her responded to him and she smiled. 

"I'm just going to clean you up. I need to use a regenerator, it'll sting a little for a few seconds."

"Lucas," Deanna said, remembering at last. The last name she'd discussed with Jean-Luc. It reminded her of him, and she burst into tears. The baby cried a little as well. 

"Deanna?"

But Deanna fell back into unconsciousness -- she was aware of the dimming of the bright diffuse lighting of the room, and then nothing at all.

 


	64. The Opposite of Despair

Deanna came awake to the sound of a baby crying. Then it struck her -- it was her baby. Her eyes, though her eyelids felt heavy and crusted over, flew open and she ignored the protests her body sent up to shove herself upright. Same room, same bed, and her baby lay in a crib between the beds. She leaned forward to pick him up and looked around.

Beverly was gone.

A sob escaped her, but her hungry baby kept crying, and there was nothing around to feed him. She felt at her own breast; it appeared to be leaking a little, and so she put him down for a moment to remove the gown, then picked him up and fed him -- or tried to. It took a few minutes of work to get him to latch on. Once he was working away at her nipple she used her gown to wipe her face and try to recover her officer self, try to think, to do more than succumb to hopelessness.

While she sat there rocking her baby and staring at the featureless walls, she scanned with her mind for anyone she knew. Anyone, any where close. She realized as she did so that several things were immediately apparent. For one, she was not on an inhabited planet with significant population; there weren't the distant blips of presences of people, diffuse in their greater numbers. There were fewer people near her than were typically present on a starship. Perhaps a few dozen at most. She thought most of those were human.

None of them were Jean-Luc. That wound remained, and was sharper than before. Apparently whatever drugs had been in play during her extended convalescence had been allowed to disperse. Her husband's absence left her jumpy and hypervigilant, and angry. Starting to feel anger gave her hope. Maybe she would be able to work this out. She tried not to think of all the reasons she was even here -- the only real conclusion she could come to was that they had not been careful enough, and this was retribution, revenge, something to do with being unwilling to shut up and go away, rather than pushing onward to revealing the hidden agenda of the conspiracy.

"I need diapers," she said, remembering what Beverly said. "I'm hungry. I need clothes... I'm sore as hell, I just had a baby! Monsters, how dare you take me away from my family," she exclaimed, not caring any more. "What did you do with Beverly?"

A wave of despair at that. Beverly was gone, and she couldn't sense her friend anywhere -- what would have been easiest for them to do with her?

The baby quieted. Wrapping up in a blanket, she curled up on the bed with Lucas held against her chest, and closed her eyes.

When she woke some time later, it was to a touch on her shoulder. She sat up, picking up the baby, and stared at the man in front of her.

"I tried to tell you," Thomas said. He was wearing a black shirt, a black pair of pants, black boots. He'd shaved most of the beard down to a goatee which was peppered liberally with gray.

Deanna glared at him and said nothing at all. He would explain, or he wouldn't. She saw no reason to put herself into hysterics asking questions. She spent a few minutes arranging Lucas to let him latch on to her other breast.

"You don't have any questions?"

"Why am I going to ask any of them? You'll either keep me here in this cage until you've blackmailed Jean-Luc into doing something or until he proves to you that he will not be blackmailed, and you decide to kill me."

"Those aren't the only options." Thomas leaned against the other bed. She saw then that there was food on a tray, on that bed, as well as some other things. Clothing, folded and stacked. Diapers.

"I'm not working for anyone other than myself. I don't want to work for Starfleet. I don't want to work for you. Recruiting me will fail -- I'd rather die."

Thomas watched her nurse the baby. "You'd rather be with your family," he said quietly.

"Then why am I still here!" She upset the baby with her volume, but he quieted quickly.

"There's been some changes. The Dominion invaded the Alpha Quadrant. We're at war, and your husband is back on the _Enterprise_. We let Beverly go back to Earth, unharmed, with just enough information that your family and friends know that you are alive and had the baby."

Deanna glared at him while the tears streamed from her eyes. "Why can't I go home?"

Thomas felt sympathy -- he looked at the floor, and at the tray. "You should have something to eat. I'll see about getting you something to read."

"What do you want me for? Thomas!" But a transporter beam took him away, leaving her to care for her baby in solitude.

She lost track of time, which was probably why the featureless room -- she slept, ate, tended the baby, read things from the padd that had been sent in with one of the meals and a change of clothing. Psychological journals and fiction, and then they started to include news. She found out -- if any of it was true, she told herself that it would be like them to try to brainwash her any way they could into being one of them, and she couldn't believe anything she read until she'd verified it from more reliable sources -- that the war was being waged around Deep Space Nine. That the _Enterprise_ was one of many vessels defending the sector, defending Bajor, and that Admiral Ross had been replaced. Admiral Sendat -- a Vulcan name, she thought -- was now in place.

She kept paying attention. Sensed people come and go -- she spent time focusing on what she could sense, and so she recognized when the small population around her changed. She knew when Thomas was gone for a while, and when he came back.

And then one day, while she nursed Lucas and gazed down into his wide black eyes, stroking his soft brown hair, she sensed more. Her heart started to hammer in her chest. Her tiny sliver of hope rebounded, became a great upwelling of joy. She tried not to show it outwardly, got up and changed his diaper again, then used the disposal in the corner -- put on the day's fresh change of clothing, a nondescript blue coverall, and took inventory -- her attempt at regular exercise (as much as she could manage in a box) had paid off and she had recovered significantly from convalescence, with only a midriff roll to show she'd been pregnant. She wasn't about to pass a physical fitness exam but she estimated her muscle tone was adequate and her weight as normal as it could be. Braiding her hair, tying it off with a band she'd requested for that purpose, she picked up Lucas again and walked around the room with him, singing a lullaby. He had gained weight and she estimated he must be about two months old.

"My sweet boy," she murmured, as she often did. Kissed his soft forehead, hummed, rocked him in her arms gently.

She knew when Jean-Luc could tell she was there -- it was as though a channel opened between them and then he was excited, happy, and then so very focused and intense as only Captain Picard could be. She could almost hear him giving the orders. She could sense the increase of anxiety around her, as people became aware that something was going on. There was a surge of apprehension. She knew Thomas was still there, and then she knew when he felt resignation and... fear. Desperation.

The walls of the room shook.

A few minutes later, when she expected the transporter to deliver someone, she felt the beam pulling her away. She was in a transporter room -- not the one she wanted to be in, as there was Thomas coming from behind the console.

"The self destruct has been activated," he exclaimed. "I'm supposed to let you go down with the rest of us. But I can't do that to you. I'm sorry, Deanna. Stay where you are -- here." He held out a comm badge. "It's yours. Go home. I'm sorry, about everything."

She took it, put it on her shoulder, and held out a hand -- he gripped it briefly. "Thank you," she said, smiling at him through tears.

"The coordinates in the smallest file I gave you are important -- go there," he said, then turned and ran from the room, through a door.

"Troi to _Enterprise_ \-- requesting immediate transport." The walls trembled, and she heard a klaxon going off distantly. And then the klaxon went off in the transporter room, and the wall across from her started to buckle.

She dissolved in a tingle and then a different transporter room materialized around her. An officer she had never met stared at her from behind the console. She staggered a few steps, in shock -- the first freedom she had had in months, a starship, the _Enterprise_ \-- she wanted to run and shout and leap into her husband's arms, report to the captain for debriefing, do things again that made sense to her and that she had always enjoyed doing, but her legs failed her for reasons of anxiety and shock.

The door opened, and hands took the baby from her, gripped her arms, and then the transporter took her away to sickbay. She tried again, banging her knee on the biobed they were trying to lever her onto. Beverly leaned down and looked her in the eye, and smiled.

"We're going to check you out and take you home," she murmured. "Red alert was over a minute ago -- how do you feel?"

Deanna blinked. "I'm a little overwhelmed. I thought they might have killed you."

Beverly's blue eyes glittered and her smile crumpled. "I remember a little about it. I think not everything. But we'll talk later... you have a lot of people who will want to see you. I'm going to try to get you to the most important ones first and keep the rest at bay. Once you're settled in and feeling better we can have a party."

"My son," she said, and the tears started. Lucas was starting to cry -- it wasn't hunger, he was afraid.

"Alyssa, let's make this as painless as possible -- bring the baby over here."

Deanna let them work around her, scan her, examine her -- she held Lucas and hummed. By the time they were done, she felt almost whole again. She was among familiar people -- enough of the crew had returned that it felt like home. Beverly took Lucas while she got up from the biobed, and they walked together from sickbay.

"That's the least flattering outfit I've ever seen you wear," Beverly said with a smile. "I know you're in shock. You're going to need time to adjust. I hope you can focus on recovering instead of obsessing."

"How long...." Deanna almost choked on that. "How did it happen? I remember being in the bedroom in San Francisco. Holding Alexander. And then I woke up and had a baby. And then I woke up and you -- "

Beverly put a hand on her back. "Stop, Deanna. Take a deep breath. You know what's happening -- you coached the captain through this how many times? Other officers, how many times? It's all right. Breathe."

"Beverly, where are we? The ship, right now, where is it?"

Beverly pushed gently, and walked her into the lift. "Let's get you to quarters."

"I want to know where we are," she insisted. "Where have I been for so many months?"

"I think we need to focus on helping you feel better for now. Let you rest and let your family spend time with you."

Deanna stared at the carpet. It was the dark gray she remember, from the tour of the ship so long ago -- it felt like another life. She bit back a sob.

"Deanna?" Beverly asked, concerned, as the lift door opened two decks later. She guided Deanna out and slowly down the corridor. In her arm the baby fussed a little.

"Has it been done? Is it safe to talk?"

"You mean the computer issue? Yes, Geordi turned loose the subroutines in the fleet at large, that's all taken care of. And Kate's aboard, she's better too -- we were able to take your research to someone and have them refine it and use it on her, to undo the disassociation. She was able to remember the entire process once that was done, directed us on finding the device the admiral mentioned and then from there we were able to backward-engineer a device to achieve the same result as the treatment protocol you developed. We've been running it on people prophylactically, when we suspect something is going on." Beverly stopped at a door -- she put her hand on Deanna's shoulder. "Look, you shouldn't get bogged down in details right now. I know you're scared. So I'm going to tell you that all the things we were working on before, they were put into action -- things have changed for the better, and it's mostly because you were so determined to do something about conspiracies and boogie men, and power-hungry people within Starfleet. You should spend time with your husband and your son -- your sons," she corrected with a smile. "Alexander will be home from school in an hour. The captain should be down from the bridge any time now. Here you go." She laid Lucas in her arms, and watched her go through the door.

Deanna went into the living room with wide eyes. There were familiar things -- the weapons on the wall were Alexander's, the pictures on the other wall were ones taken of family during their time on Earth. Robert and Marie and Rene's smiles were among the many happy expressions in the faces in the pictures. Jean-Luc had framed and added a large picture of Deanna, wearing a blue dress and obviously pregnant, smiling -- the expression told anyone who knew them that Jean-Luc was the one taking the picture.

She turned away when the tears welled up and the sadness filled her, and rather than take a full tour she headed into the bedroom. The bed was in the same place as it had been on the last version of the ship, and just as large and standard issue. Her things were on the dressing table, she noticed with a tearful smile, and she picked up her hair brush -- he was such an optimist. That meant her clothes would be there. She drew out a green dress she liked and laid it on the bed.

"I am going to replicate you an entire wardrobe," she told Lucas, placing him on the bed. He wasn't likely to crawl off or roll over. He looked up at her and smiled. It made her freeze as she took off the coverall. She stepped out of the legs of the pants and knelt at the side of the bed, caressing her son's cheeks. "Lucas? Are you smiling at me, honey?"

Lucas cooed and smiled again. She kissed his cheek, picked him up and turned to lean against the side of the bed and hold her son, crying.

The bedroom door opened and closed quietly, and she opened her eyes to look up into Jean-Luc's face. He stared at them open-mouthed, then fell to his knees and touched her face as if afraid she would disintegrate if he pressed too hard. His hand dropped to cover the back of Lucas' head.  Then he gathered her into his arms, baby and all, and started to cry with her.

After they had recovered somewhat, she moved a little -- he settled back and looked at her again, smiling this time. Things were normalizing. She transferred the baby into his arms. "Lucas needs to get used to you, and I really, really want a bath. I haven't had one in a long time."

"Deanna, he's -- " The joy in his face as he looked down at his son's face was priceless. He held him in that way new fathers had, as if she'd handed him a baby made of blown glass and he might shatter at the slightest pressure.

"He's perfect. I'm so happy to be home," she murmured, kissing his temple.

"I love you," he whispered. "I took this ship because I knew it would be my only means of finding you -- I couldn't stop looking for you. I knew you were alive."

"I'm starting to crash. You know what that means. What this is like."

"The adrenaline crash, yes, I remember well." His hand came up to cup her cheek. "I'm going to take care of you. We'll take care of you."

He did -- placed the baby on the bed, carefully away from the edge, and accompanied her into the bathroom to put her in the bath. She fell asleep there while he brushed out her hair, waking as he started to drain the tub and letting him support most of her weight as he helped her up to dry and dress. She wanted to see Alexander, so he brought the baby and followed her out to sit on the couch. Almost down to the minute -- the door opened and Alexander came in, alone, no one escorting him home. He stopped and stared at her in shock. Her little Klingon was taller and starting to fill out -- a Klingon teenager, almost. He approached slowly and she stood to bring him into her arms.

He cried a little too -- sobbed a few times, then stepped back to grin at her. "Hi, Mom."

"I'm so happy to be home -- you've grown. I'm sorry I've been gone so long," she cried, frustrated that the tears started all over again.

"It's okay, Mom. Dad said you would be back -- he said he'd find you. I'm just really happy you're all right. You had the baby," he exclaimed, sounding a little more like the younger Alexander -- a bit more high-pitched and excited. "Can I hold him?"

That led to her watching Jean-Luc rise and hand across the baby into Alexander's arms, without hesitation, and she put her hands over her nose and mouth and tried not to cry too loudly or wildly at how much he had changed while she was gone. Or how much the relationship between Jean-Luc and his stepson had evolved. The ease with which Jean-Luc stood with a hand on Alexander's shoulder, both of them smiling down at Lucas happily -- she almost thought she might wake up and find it was all a dream.

"I have a brother," Alexander said proudly. "Am I sharing my room with him?"

"I think so, eventually, but I think he'll need to stay closer to Mom than that for a while. We'll move him in with you when he's older. All right?"

"But I can help take care of him?"

Deanna caught her breath at long last, composed herself, and let her hands drop to clutch her skirt. She was so used to holding the baby that she felt something was missing, without him in her arms. "Oh, yes. I think you should stay home from school tomorrow and I'll teach you all about how. In between naps. I've been very tired, babies only sleep for a few hours at a time."

"What's his name?"

Jean-Luc shot an amused glance at her. "This is Lucas."

"Hi, Lucas." Alexander grinned at the baby. "Hey, he doesn't have any teeth!"

"He's smiling," Jean-Luc announced.

"He's just learned how. I guess he's happy to be home, too," Deanna said. "But he's starting to feel hungry. Let me have him back, I'll feed him before I fall asleep again."

As she settled on the couch, Jean-Luc nudged Alexander into his routine, asking about homework and the school day, and Deanna smiled as she undid the front of the dress to nurse. She knew it would take time to feel completely at home again, but as new and strange as it was she felt good to be there, to get used to this new version of Alexander. Jean-Luc returned to her side after their stepson went to his room to start his math.

"I feel like I've missed too much, he's grown and -- he would have been clingy, before," she murmured.

"You had a lot to do with his progress -- he was a lot easier to handle, even though he was terrified when you disappeared."

Deanna looked at him fondly while Lucas made contented little noises at her breast. "I probably shouldn't ask yet, but I don't even have any memory of what happened. I woke up in a doorless, windowless room. They must have sedated me for the duration, until I was about to go into labor."

His sad expression and the echo of pain underneath it told her he wasn't ready to talk about that. He watched Lucas and took him when the baby was finished.

"You'll need to burp him, if you don't want him to start crying in a few minutes." To her surprise, he did just that -- holding the baby face down on his forearm and giving him a few pats until a moist little eruption resulted.

"Mike and Leila had their baby as well. I've had a little bit of practice," he explained.

Deanna grinned at that. "I wish I weren't so tired. I can't wait to see everyone."

"Tomorrow. Let's get you to bed."


	65. A Whole New World

The first night back was as terrible as she remembered the first night Jean-Luc had been back from the Borg being. He was as patient and concerned as he had been the last time she'd been traumatized, but the third time she woke in a thrashing, screaming terror, he held her while she cried and she sensed a decision -- a resolution. He got up when she had calmed, to get the baby out of the crib -- calmed him down as well, whispering to him in two languages.

"Please," she said, pushing pillows behind her and reaching, and he brought Lucas to her. Having him in her arms again soothed her as well as the baby. Jean-Luc watched them in the half-light he'd asked for, and sat on the edge of the bed.

"I'm going to take you home," he said.

She blinked wetly at him, her eyes aching. Held the baby to her shoulder and patted his back gently.

"You were screaming at them to get away and let you go," he said quietly.

"I -- " The images from the dream were vague. But as she thought about them she remembered voices, and hands, and terror. "I think they put me under for so long because I wouldn't settle down. They took me away from you and it was too much for me, as it was on Bajor."

"You and I know how these things go," he said. "I'm not going to even try to spend time on the bridge -- this isn't going to be business as usual."

"But -- I can work with the counselor, while you -- "

He took her head in his hands -- it was such an unusual gesture that she stopped and met his gaze, worried but willing to listen. "I knew you were alive because they tried to tell me to do things for them. I took the ship, I went along with things I would have done anyway -- I refused to compromise our first mission, and then we were sent out for the mission we were just on. They told me to avoid destroying the military depot we were ordered to find. When we took out the depot I -- felt you. I followed what I thought was the right heading and found this installation on the back of an asteroid under a cloak. When we disrupted the cloak they erected shields -- we were assessing the situation when explosions started, one at a time, from one end of the installation to the other. Data and Mike were trying to get a lock on any life sign we could when you contacted the ship."

"Thomas Riker saved me," she said sadly. "He gave me my badge."

Jean-Luc sighed heavily. His hands dropped to her shoulders, and then he took Lucas from her, carried him back to the crib, and got back in bed to sit with her. "I'm going to take you home to LaBarre. Put Alexander in school with Rene, and we're going to focus on your recovery."

Deanna winced at that, shaking her head. "I can't let you do that, Jean-Luc. What about the Dominion? What about the war?" What about him, when things normalized and he missed his ship and all that came with it? 

"I remember what happened, when I came back from assimilation, and when I came back after Minos Korva. You set aside everything else, for weeks. Because I was that bad, just as you are right now."

"You aren't my counselor. You're my husband."

He gave her a steady, intense stare. "Do you think that I would be able to focus on the bridge while you're somewhere having flashbacks? I could tell you were out there -- you were happy, relieved, and the minute I could tell you were there, I was right there with you instead of being on the bridge."

"And then you were on the bridge giving orders. Because I was with you as well. I'm not saying that spending a few weeks with me isn't possible, you can take time to do that, I'm simply pointing out that you don't have to quit to take care of me, Jean-Luc. Officers take time off for family emergencies."

He smiled with a great amount of amusement and appreciation, and some small sense of futility. "You used to trust my judgment."

"Not when it comes to you, silly man."

"Oh, what hell it is, to be happily married," he exclaimed as if quoting something he'd read somewhere. "We have a baby. I have a wife who just got back from hell, and no, I'm not going to play games with this. You and our children are more important to me than this. Starfleet can take care of itself. It's improved, Deanna, what you started, what we did, there's been an incredible sea change -- you haven't been back long enough to understand it all. Trust me, please? Go to sleep."

"Please don't make decisions based in how you feel," she pleaded.

It brought him to a weary acceptance of it. "If you'll get some sleep, I'll postpone making a decision."

She settled down in bed, pulling up the covers, watching him do the same with weary eyes. And he rolled to face her and scowled across the ten inches of space between them. 

"I am not going to miss having a ship. Was I happy in San Francisco? There will be a job for me at Command -- Elena wanted to skip me a few bars and put me in Tactical, replace someone she had arrested with someone she could trust. And we could be together and raise Lucas with family there to help. Marie was devastated when she found out you were missing. She'll be so happy to have you back."

"I'll stop thinking about it if you will."

He sighed, and started thinking about other things. The winery and Robert's ire about the rust that was showing up on some of the leaves. Leila's little girl, Neely. Geordi and his attempt to restart poker games on board, with Mike and Beverly, and Data hosting the games. Taking Alexander skydiving, despite the memories that brought up for both of them, and reassuring him they would find her. It almost took them where neither of them wanted to go, so he switched to remembering a trip to the beach while they were in San Francisco, and sailing on Ben Holloway's sailboat. 

She fell asleep while thinking about the wind in her hair, a slight queasy feeling in the stomach, and watching Alexander laugh in joy as he steered the boat.

Waking up to feed the baby meant both of them woke up, but they were so tired after each feeding that falling asleep again was immediate. She moaned when, as his morning alarm sounded, the baby started to cry again. Putting on a robe, she brought Lucas out to the breakfast table after feeding him, and then Jean-Luc had to leave -- he didn't want to, but kissed her forehead, kissed the baby, gave Alexander a thump on the shoulder -- a new gesture, that Alexander grinned at -- and left them there to head for the bridge. She knew he was thinking about talking to the fleet admiral, and how they would be back in Federation space shortly. 

Alexander was uncomfortable once he was gone.

"He needs changing, we should do that," she said, getting up from the table. When he hesitated, she went around the table, almost put her hand on his head -- something made her hesitate, and she touched his arm instead. "What's wrong, Alexander?"

"I missed you, Mom."

She lost the battle before it started, tears spilling, but she smiled through it. "I missed you so much -- I worried about you. Both of you. But you took care of each other."

"Did they hurt you?"

She pulled out the chair next to him and sat, patting the baby's back. "They kept me in a room. They didn't do anything to me physically, just left me there alone -- in a way that was harder than having to fight. I was so lonely and I was afraid they would hurt me, at some point, or take the baby away."

Alexander scowled, and the awkwardness remained. He didn't seem to know what to say. "I'm glad you're home. I love you, Mom."

Deanna sighed. "I love you, too." Lucas started to fuss a little. "Want to help me change his diaper?"

"I... there's a test, I shouldn't miss it," Alexander said. "Can I learn how to do that later?"

"Of course. There's plenty of time for that."

Alexander leaned in to give her a quick hug, and went out the door. 

It left her to realize all over again how different it was, with Klingon children, how quickly they grew and how much time had passed -- being gone for five months had meant missing too much of his development. Part of her felt joy, that he was so independent and motivated for school, where before he would have leaped at the chance to skip it. He was genuinely interested in the baby and helping her, but at the same time, he must have reached the point where little boy enthusiasm wasn't overpowering for him, and the young man he was becoming could tell she was having difficulty and unsure of what to do with that. But it hurt -- she missed her little boy all over again, since it was obvious she wasn't getting him back now at all.

She changed the diaper, thinking it was fortunate that she had done it so much that she could manage with tears blurring her vision. "It's okay," she said, more to herself than the baby. Picking him up, she rocked him and cuddled him, and tried to blink away tears.

The door opened and Jean-Luc returned -- she'd sensed him being aware, but made it clear she didn't want him to respond to it. He sighed, coming to where she sat on the couch, and set aside the baby powder without a thought to join her.

"I knew he would be on a different developmental schedule than most children, but it still hurts," she said. "You knew, didn't you, what he would do?"

"I know that he's changed, yes, but this is the big Alexander version of what happened when Worf brought him back to live here, I think," Jean-Luc said, proving he was paying attention and making great strides toward being the father he wanted to be. "You told me once that he isn't good at handling his own conflicted feelings, not unlike his father. He had a tough time when you were gone, and I was in the middle of my own desperate clinging to hope and defying the odds process. We all did the best we could. And now you're back, with a baby, and he's changed. He doesn't know how to react to any of it."

Deanna nodded and tried not to feel so much like a failure. Jean-Luc watched her for a moment, the concern visible in his face  as he considered what could be done about this. 

"Come sit with me on the bridge," he said. 

It brought her eyes up to his again. "But, the baby."

"We're in transit, at high warp. Unlikely to be thrown into combat. We're going to Deep Space Nine, to meet and debrief -- Elena is coming all the way out herself to see you." His subdued smile and a joyful little jolt of pride startled her. "You can take him in the ready room if he needs anything."

"You don't want children on the bridge."

His chin came up. "My bridge, my child. My wife. And I outrank you, madame." He snorted. "That was a long time ago, on a different ship, and I am a better person. And sitting here by yourself is going to make you miserable. Come on."

She changed, into a bright teal dress, and put the baby in a blue outfit then wrapped him in a new blanket. He smiled, standing by the door, and when she brought Lucas to him he kissed her cheek. 

When they came out on the bridge there was the immediate shocked reaction, followed by grins -- and then Data stood up at attention, and Mike at the tactical station stiffened and saluted. And then everyone else around the bridge did the same. Deanna glanced uncertainly from one face to the next and turned to Jean-Luc.

"I'm not the most famous person in the family any more," he said with a mischievous smile, giving her a gentle shove. 

She came down the bridge, glanced at the lieutenant at ops and the ensign at the helm, turned to Data. The android smiled. "Welcome home, Commander Troi."

"Thank you," she said with a happy grin, and sighed. "At ease, all of you. You're making me nervous."

"Respect where respect is due, ma'am," said the young blond at ops. He glanced at the captain and sat down with alacrity. The woman at the helm nodded curtly and followed suit.

There was a lieutenant-commander standing in front of her old chair, and she realized then that there really would be no place for her on this ship with a sad little lurch of her heart. "Lieutenant-Commander Curtis, sir," the new counselor said, smiling pleasantly as her eyes dropped to the bundle in Deanna's arms. "This is...."

"Lucas," Jean-Luc filled in, stepping around Deanna and displacing Data, who sat down in his own chair. "Counselor Curtis, this is my wife, Deanna."

"A pleasure to meet you." Curtis' eyes were a warm shade of brown. She looked up at Deanna, from studying the baby, and glanced at the captain. "I wonder if you wouldn't mind finding the time to talk to me, Deanna?"

Deanna took seconds to size up the counselor. "Would tomorrow morning be all right? I'll arrange for someone to stay with Lucas."

"Of course." Another polite twitch of the lips, and the counselor turned to the captain. "If you'll excuse me, sir, I have appointments."

"Counselor," he replied cordially, and turned to take his seat. Deanna watched the counselor leaving, then smiled at Mike and sat down in the counselor's chair. 

"Permission to approach the baby, sir," Mike asked, sounding as matter of fact as if it were official business.

Jean-Luc gave her the long suffering look of Captain Picard tolerating the nonsense of junior officers -- internally, he was happy enough. "We may as well get it over with -- come on, everyone."

It was the first time in her memory that no one paid any attention to their post, while he was on the bridge. Even the staff at secondary stations at the back of the bridge came in for a look. She gave the baby over to Mike, feeling a little claustrophobic with everyone pushing in for a look, and smiled at Jean-Luc. He tolerated congratulations, questions about how old he was, and the chatter about the baby having his chin for only a short period, however, and finally cleared his throat -- it was enough to scatter everyone but Mike, who reluctantly handed off Lucas to Deanna and hustled up to tactical. 

And then he wondered what it was Deanna didn't like about the counselor, because he'd caught only that part of it. She smiled down at the baby, and refused to tell him. Not on the bridge. Then he thought she might like to start catching up on the news, and she took Lucas into the ready room without a word -- no one so much as blinked at it. 

He didn't have a fish tank, in this smaller, less comfortable version of his ready room. Still a replicator, though, and she got some tea before settling down to bring up Starfleet newsfeeds on the monitor at his desk. The more she looked through headlines, the more anxious she became. 

There were dozens of articles talking about how to verify orders, when to question -- how to verify credentials of flag officers. In the feed for changes in regulation, several announcements for security procedures to follow when bringing in new personnel were at the top. Over in Starfleet Medical's feed, articles discussing engrammatic disassociation and replicating the device with which to address it were there, posted just in the past two months. And at the top of the counselor's column an article informing the field counselors to help them handle trauma related to having been conscripted to do things outside the realm of Starfleet official business. 

Deanna switched to general news. One of the first news items in the Starfleet channel, public version, talked about the counselor who had analyzed a pattern of behavior in the fleet at large, determined that a conspiracy was at work, and gone to the admirals at Command, triggering a long series of changes in Starfleet. She switched back and asked the computer to search for her by name in Starfleet specific channels.

When the door opened, she was leaning on the desk, her forehead resting on the back of her arm. She knew it was Jean-Luc. When she finally sat up again, he was sitting in a chair grinning at her from the wrong side of his own desk, looking quite relaxed.

"Elena sent out the message and the response was overwhelming," he said. "No one has to be alone with this any longer. Everyone knows. The rest evolved as people from all departments responded to the general appeal for help. They, whoever they may be, however many of them are left, are still putting pressure on people to do things, but no one has to be alone with this threat any longer. Starfleet security takes threats against an officer's family seriously. You saw the results in the feeds, clearly."

Deanna didn't know how to feel about it -- any of it. She felt tired, suddenly, and while she couldn't say she felt entirely alone, she sighed and looked down at the baby in her arms, who had been her only companion since his birth. 

"There's a nursery you can leave him in for a few hours, remember," Jean-Luc said. "I know you're tired. If you catch up on sleep during the day it will help."

"I'm not a hero," she complained at last. "All I wanted was security. To be left alone."

"So did everyone. I'm guessing you haven't even looked at your own inbox."

"I don't understand why I was kept hidden away," she said at last. "I don't understand any of this. These articles -- no one is afraid of retribution?"

Jean-Luc came to pick up the baby. "None of them were posted by a single person. Most were written and posted anonymously, if there is anything they might find inflammatory in it. Elena has been under high security since she sent her message, but the death threats have diminished and the single attempt was thwarted. We've built a better picture of the elephant, none of us are as blind as we were, and it's going to be all right, Deanna."

"I'm not sure how to feel about all of this."

"Take a nap on the couch, here. I'll keep the baby with me for now. Please?" He was doing as she had done before, responding to how she felt without waiting for her to articulate it. This was not what she had expected to happen between them.

She gave in to his concern, went to sit on the gray couch, and he replicated a pillow and blanket, and brought it over to her. "Jean-Luc."

"It's all right," he insisted, leaning to kiss her lightly on the lips. Already he held the baby in one arm like he'd been doing it all his life. Lucas was half asleep himself. "You trained yourself to be anxious, while you were a prisoner. Now you have to learn to relax again."

"Thank you, Counselor," she chided with a tired grin.

"Since you told me that at least a thousand times, I get to tell you at least once. Go. To. Sleep."

"Yes, sir."

He scowled a little at that, and left her there to try.

 

 


	66. The Elephant in the Room

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Autocorrect hates me. I think I caught them all but this has a lot of skin in it and if a sentence suddenly involves 'skiing' it's because I missed correcting the autocorrect - still figuring out how to get it to stop revising my valid words to other words that make no sense in the context.

Deanna thought at breakfast the following day that Jean-Luc must have said something to their son. Alexander still felt uneasy, but spent a little more time talking to her. After the casual discussion of his next project for science and what he and Jean-Luc had planned for that evening -- apparently, every fourth evening was guys' night in the holodeck with Mike -- this shockingly-calm version of Alexander looked at his stepfather as if he'd just realized something, and said, "Maybe we shouldn't go sailing tonight. Mom just got home, we should spend time with her."

Jean-Luc was surprised by that, so maybe he hadn't spoken to him after all. He put down the half-eaten pastry he held and picked up his coffee. "What do you think, Deanna? Are you up to coming to the holodeck with us?"

"Beverly already started to hint with fervor that she'd appreciate some 'auntie time' with Lucas. I bet she'd give me some medication for sea sickness, too. I actually enjoyed the last time we went out on the bay."

Alexander grinned at it, looking like the happy boy she remembered at last. "Until you hurled off the starboard bow," he said with a laugh.

"Well, I have happier memories than that, but yes." Deanna thought about other memories as well. Last night she'd had one nightmare, and then one very nice dream, in between all the baby wake-up calls. She thought she would like the nice dream to be a nice reality, but Jean-Luc was caught up in new parent fervor; he'd only brought her the baby when Lucas got hungry the day before, his first full day with the child he hadn't planned to have. He'd carried his son everywhere and introduced him to everyone. Not precisely what Captain Picard of just a few years ago might have done. The every-few-hours cycle of night feedings was difficult for him, yet he suggested modifications -- pumping breast milk or transitioning the baby to formula, so she could get uninterrupted sleep. They could take turns, one night on, one off, so there would be more sleep at least half the time.

"So we'll line up Beverly to babysit and have a nice evening on the ocean. Alexander can go to Gravy's place -- "

"His _name_ is _Garvey_ ," Alexander stated clearly as if this was a sore point. But he was grinning.

Jean-Luc had a smirk that said this was a routine for them. "Yes, that's what I said, Gravy -- he's the son of one of the engineers, I think."

"Mo-ooom," Alexander moaned. "Make him stop." But he was still grinning.

"You need to get your shoes and get going," Jean-Luc said. From the open bedroom door came crying, and so he went that direction as Alexander went the other. Deanna grabbed the other half of Jean-Luc's croissant and took a bite. Jean-Luc returned with Lucas complaining hungrily in his arms. He watched her settle the baby in the front of her robe to nurse.

"I suppose I need more breakfast," he commented, as she finished eating his. He started for the replicator. "Would you like anything else? A four course meal, perhaps?"

"Something with cheese. A Toridian souffle, with plenty of pepper."

"Your tastes have certainly changed." He came back and put the plate in front of her and sat down with a couple of croissants to apply some of the berry jam he liked. "If you can arrange that breast pump, we might be able to leave him with Beverly for more than a few hours."

She looked up from the baby to share that smile, and the thought behind it. "I think that could be arranged."

Alexander ran out, padd in hand. "Okay, see you after school," he called out as he swept in for a quick kiss on her cheek. Jean-Luc bumped fists with him as he passed behind their chairs and ran from quarters.

"You are, I understand, welcoming guests soon?"

Deanna nodded. "I am -- Leila and her baby, and Beverly. We're doing manicures. I'm going to take a bath with Lucas after you leave, we'll get dressed, and they should be here around nine hundred thirty. I'm moving the appointment with the counselor to this afternoon."

"Maybe I should stick around until they get here. There's plenty of time for more than a bath." He was nothing if not opportunistic -- strange how he had gone from baby-obsessed to this openly-flirtatious state of interest.

She blinked at that. It was indeed strange. He should, after all, be on his way to the bridge any time now. While it was certainly true that some days when the ship was between missions and traveling at warp for extended periods the crew could relax, he usually went in the morning to make an appearance, check the logs, and then go his way to read a book.

"Jean-Luc, are you feeling all right this morning?"

He polished off the croissant and sipped coffee, and glanced at her. Thought about it, as his eyes went distant, and drank coffee again. "I told you I wasn't going to be able to stay on the bridge."

"You're saying you are that aware of me now? Even when I'm not aware of it, or the link between us isn't active?"

He had the look of someone who had accepted the embarrassing truth of something. "I wasn't certain it wasn't something you intended."

Deanna turned her chair, reached to touch his cheek, and he let her draw him over for a kiss. "It was not. I don't want you to feel obligated to wait on me hand and foot -- I'm only off duty because there's absolutely nothing for me to do, I'm perfectly healthy. In fact, I was going to start running and working out today, if I can find the right bra to wear. I'm out of shape, not disabled."

"You said you wanted me to keep the ship. What would you do if I did?"

The eddies and ripples of his feelings as he said that told her she'd managed to convince him to think it through, and though he was dubious he was trying. There was still an underlying determination that he was firmly looking at this through the lens of family first, Starfleet second. It occurred to her that this might be one of those bonds that would make them inseparable. She didn't like that, didn't want it, knew better than to think it would be good for them. Especially if she had another baby. Which led her to wonder if he had felt anything from her then, as far apart as they had likely been at the time.

"I don't know. I wanted -- " The baby had stopped pulling at her breast, and she removed him from the front of her robe. He'd fallen asleep, woke up a little as she patted his back and went right back to sleep in her arms. "I know you're not going to fire your counselor so I can have my old job back. That wouldn't be fair."

He reacted to that with an interested blend of guilt, trepidation, anxiety, even some regret. "But I could."

"Jean-Luc?"

"I suppose I've been spoiled, all this time you were ship's counselor. She isn't anything like you."

"You want to talk about that?" She laughed a little with him, and he smiled, then started to feel again as he had a bit ago, eyeing her speculatively, desiring her. She stood and took the baby in to put him in down for a nap, smiling at the stuffed cat Data had given them last night that now watched over Lucas from the corner of the crib. He followed her into the bedroom 

"Don't want to talk," he said. He pulled at the sash on her robe from behind, and she let herself stumble back a step into his arms. 

It wasn't the first time they had kissed, since her return, wasn't the first time he touched her, but he was now intent on the feel of her skin under his hands, and the way she felt as he caressed her -- breasts, hips, then in the small of her back, his fingertips gliding along her buttocks, then as he ran his tongue along hers he gripped her right cheek and pressed her against himself, as his left hand cupped her and slid down her pubic hair, his fingers pressing in and finding wet folds, then pressing together around -- 

She stifled a shout, and she shook as if caught in an electric charge at the sensation of his gentle manipulation. He backed off then, and held her by the shoulders. "Let's get in bed?" Then as he was able to see her face, he hesitated. "Are you all right?"

"It's overwhelming," she whispered. "I don't know why."

He pushed the robe off her, and she almost turned away -- but she let him look at her, the extra roll at her waist and the leaking nipples, knowing she was slightly overweight and that showed. Stretch marks were fainter but present. Her hair still felt a bit brittle and lacked its former luster. She hadn't been mistreated, but she hadn't been able to control what she was fed or exercise as much as she'd wanted, hadn't been given anything to use on her hair except for a powdered shampoo and a towel once a week. 

But he loved her anyway -- he could tell she felt self conscious about her body, and it triggered anger and sadness. He held her again, this time wanting to reassure her and express his love for her. And then he kissed her again, and the desire returned. He pulled away and caressed her cheek with his thumb, looking her in the eye.

"Only if you want to," he whispered.

Remembering all the times she had cried, thinking about him, missing everything about him, over the past months, brought tears to her eyes. She held her arms across her belly and looked down at her unpainted toenails, and reflected on all the things she had taken for granted before. 

"Deanna?"

"I don't know how to feel any more."

He held her again, his face in her hair, his dry lips brushing the back of her ear. "How can I help?"

She brought her hand up his thigh, until she found his erect penis. "Love me." 

It wasn't a question or a request so much as it was what he wanted, an instruction. Deanna almost felt adrift -- it had been months, certainly not the longest dry spell she'd ever had, but since she had begun to share a bed with him, there had been more often than not regular physical contact. Reassuring, stimulating, comforting, and also merely affectionate. The brief flirtations with men she had met over the years had never allowed the development of the full range of the language of touch. She had had very few relationships in which that could develop. Even her time with Will had been more intense, less frequent and more impassioned touch that young lovers would have. Jean-Luc had not been what she would consider 'touchy-feely' as so many people termed it, but he had responded to her obvious enjoyment of his touch by giving her more of it, wanting to please her. Especially once he had started to be able to feel her enjoying that.

Deanna had thought at times over the last two months that she would never be with Jean-Luc again. Thinking about how alone and touch-deprived she had been, how incredibly lonely, made her chest hurt. Her body trembled in his arms. She had to whisper the words, again, to reassure him that she wanted him to touch her. With that little encouragement, he stepped away to remove his clothing, guided her to the bed, watched her lay down and joined her there, first on his side facing her, then shortly moving against her as he started to kiss her again.

She let herself remember feeling his absence, as they became more connected and she knew he could read that from her. She remembered missing his body, his weight, the sensation of being filled -- as she felt the lack he went about meeting the need. He ignored the leaking of her breasts while she put her arms around his neck and enjoyed his chest moving against her. It was perhaps less passionate than their usual, but he followed her lead and kissed her with more gentle affection than anything. Held her quietly, after -- his own orgasm didn't take long to achieve, and she hadn't had one at all, but that wasn't their concern at the moment. He pulled up the sheet over them, and held her for a while longer as she cried quietly in relief. 

It was especially nice not to have to talk, she thought. That amused him quite a bit. He thought about all the counseling sessions she'd spent trying to weasel some confession of his feelings out of him, and decided he liked this better, actually.

"I love you," she muttered, smiling against the warm skin of his shoulder.

"I love you, too. It's good to have you home."

"So I'm going to spend some time today, thinking about tonight." She already thought about that a bit, and smiled at the involuntary tightening around his flaccid penis as her body responded to that. "Perhaps in the bath. Which I think I will postpone til later."

"Since I know you're always concerned about their whereabouts, your 'special toys' are in the bottom drawer in the bathroom." He knew what else she sometimes liked to do in the bath, well enough. 

They started to move, leaving the bed, as she thought about the time and her future guests. And she frowned at the milk droplets in his chest hair, but he led her into the bathroom and got in the shower with her.

"I suppose you're reading all about this sort of thing," she said, after the sonics took care of the issue. 

"I've faced down worse things than breast milk -- it's hardly rational to develop a phobia about your body fluids at this point. Come here." He turned from the cabinet over the sink with a small tub of lotion. 

"I told you so," she murmured as he applied it around her nipples with his thumb. "Look at you, taking care of your family this way."

"Love has a way of motivating us to see things differently, as you've also said before." He let her lean against him, running his fingers down her back. "I should get back in uniform and get myself to the bridge."

They were dressed again and clearing away remnants of breakfast when the chime announced an arrival, and Deanna exchanged a farewell kiss with him -- he let Beverly in as he left. She eyed him in surprise as they crossed paths and smiled at Deanna in greeting, declining a cup of tea.

"The baby is sleeping," Deanna said. "I can get my things -- we should do your nails first, since someone has to be able to pick up Lucas if he wakes."

"Leila is bringing everything. How are you today? Any better?" Beverly had a fragile smile, as if anticipating the mood could change any second.

"I think I'm better. Feeling more settled. For a while it felt like nothing was quite real. After dreaming about being home and then waking up in that tiny room, sometimes it feels like I'll just wake up there again."

The doctor went with her to sit down. "I'm almost afraid to talk to you about what happened."

"I need you to, I think," Deanna said. "I don't think Jean-Luc is ready to talk about his experience. And there are so many unanswered questions -- I don't even have a clear memory of when or how they took me. I was in bed at home, and then I was in the room and you were there. And then you were gone -- I have flashes, odd memories of being held down, but I can't remember by whom."

Beverly's worried expression disappeared when the chime sounded -- Deanna admitted Leila, and then in came Kate Pulaski, holding a baby in a carrier. Kate had difficulty looking her in the eye. There was a lot of guilt in her, and shame.

For a bit the focus was on Neely -- Leila had been just a couple weeks behind Deanna, and Neely had been born about a week before Lucas. And then Leila set the carrier on the floor near the crib where Lucas slept, and opened a large case on the coffee table, then it was all about what color and who to start on. Leila did the work; she had Deanna put her feet on the footstool, sit in the easy chair, and started on a pedicure. 

Her captivity, her long absence from the ship, was the elephant in the room, though they were updating her on things that had happened in her absence. And Deanna realized at last that they might be waiting to gauge her level of comfort with direct discussion of it.

"Is everything all right, Kate?" She gazed across at Kate, who'd taken up residence on the far end of the couch with a cup of tea. Beverly sat on the couch as well and turned to look at the other doctor with sympathy.

"Did they tell you anything about what happened to me after you were taken?" Kate asked.

"Beverly said that your engrammatic disassociation was treated, and that you then developed a countermeasure for the device they are using to induce it."

Kate shifted in place, resettled, held her mug in both hands. "I want to ask forgiveness. But I know that I don't deserve it."

Leila looked up at Deanna with wide, concerned eyes. She sat back on her heels for a moment, the nail polish she'd been using in her hand.

"I think you need to tell me," Deanna said quietly. "I don't remember anything."

"I don't think now is a good time," Beverly interjected. "This is a bad idea. I understand, I do, but Kate, she's been back for all of _two days_  and there is no way she's ready to -- "

"She has a right to know," Kate exclaimed.

"She has a choice. She's a counselor, she knows what she needs better than you do. Deanna, you know what symptoms you are having -- do you really want to hear the entire story, right now?"

Beverly's challenge rang out in the silent room. Lucas made a quiet noise and resettled.

Deanna thought about it, and then about Jean-Luc. Having her become an emotional wreck wouldn't help him, and now that she started to think about symptoms, she recognized that he was being what he had to be, that his hypervigilance about her had to be because he knew some of what Kate wanted to say as well as his own trauma, of losing her, that the current charged atmosphere in the room and the way Leila was looking up at her with fear in her face said they all knew, they all had said nothing, and she could sense well enough that they were all very, very worried about her. Jean-Luc was good at deflecting his own feelings and focusing on the present moment, but that he was planning to leave Starfleet with such firm determination said volumes.

"Can you use a darker shade of pink?" she asked Leila with a wavering smile. Leila responded in kind and turned to survey the other pinks she had brought with her.

Kate looked away. She'd wanted to unburden herself; whatever it was she had done, she was in agony.

"Kate," Deanna said firmly. It brought the doctor's attention back around to her. "You did something that you now see as a mistake. It resulted in my kidnapping. I'm sorry that you feel such agony about it, but unless you led them to me, tied my hands, and helped them take me away, I don't see the need."

Kate almost spilled the tea -- covered her mouth with her hand and stared.

"I've had plenty of experience interpreting that particular blend of emotions from certain officers who think they corner the market on blame. If you can't stow it, please go and let me have my pedicure in peace?"

Beverly grinned. Turned to Kate with a triumphant expression. Kate smiled a little, looked and felt for a moment as if she might cry, and put the mug on the end table. "I'm going to take a little walk around the deck and come back if that's all right."

"Thank you."

After Kate was gone, Deanna glanced down, smiling back at Leila. "That one?"

Leila picked up the one she pointed at, turned the bottle around. "Ah -- you want baby's ass pink."

They were still laughing when Kate got back. She looked from one of them to the other, curious, but not caving in to actually asking about it. But Deanna explained, and it felt like eons ago and worlds away, remembering their alcohol-fueled wedding planning session in Ten Forward. It actually had the opposite effect to what Deanna had wanted, instead of tuning in to a happy memory, it solidified how much had changed and how different things were now.

Then Kate glanced over to the two babies and pointed. "We could settle the matter once and for all, you know."

"I'm not waking up a baby to do that," Leila said. "Neely is incredibly difficult to settle down once she gets upset. You'll just have to wait for the next diaper change."

Deanna realized all of a sudden, as the pedicure was completed, that she had sensed the current emotional atmosphere on the ship before -- a sort of ambient anxiety, just at the threshold of her empathy, that became stronger when multiple people were with her. It was almost exactly what she'd gone through in the wake of Wolf 359, when no one was talking about the captain's assimilation, but everyone was thinking and feeling about it, especially people who knew him personally. Like the senior staff. Like Beverly, and Geordi, and now Leila and Mike were doing it too, and the elephant in the room was her experience.

No wonder the captain had left the ship to go home, at long last. He might not have been an empath but he knew, as all humans did, on a subliminal level, from the looks and the attitudes of the people around him, how tense it had been.

No wonder he was now determined to get her off the ship and take her home.

She caught the sob almost in time. The other three women froze, watching her carefully.

Jean-Luc's anxiety rose to a peak -- she knew it was a reaction to her, and closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and thought about him -- the feel of his body against hers, the resonating love between them. And he relaxed again, as much as he could.

She opened her eyes and sighed, and smiled sadly at her friends. "Could I impose on someone to get me tea, I want to let the polish dry. Leila, thank you, they look perfect -- I like the flower pattern you put on the big toe."

"Want me to do your fingernails to match? I have tips." Leila reached into the case again as Kate went to the replicator.


	67. On Being Mrs. Picard

"Lucas," Deanna told the young man, Tim, who was checking her into the nursery. It was a small room, with only two caregivers -- cheerfully decorated in rainbow colors and with plenty of toys for toddlers. There were two toddlers in evidence, playing with puppets with the young woman, Lydia.

"His father is an officer on board?"

Deanna gave him a nod. Word hadn't traveled so fast as it would have on the 1701-D. "Captain Picard."

Tim looked up from the padd he was putting the information into. To his credit, he didn't do much else. "Lucas Picard, age...."

"About two months." She almost corrected him, but it occurred to her that she hadn't really talked to Jean-Luc about the rest of the name.

"And you're Mrs. Picard -- you have a communicator?" He was assuming she wasn't an officer.

"Commander Deanna Troi, and yes, I have my comm badge."

Tim blinked at her, and she knew it was her being out of uniform that confused him.

"Maternity leave," she said, not wanting to go into great detail. "I'll be back in a couple of hours. I put two bottles of breast milk in the bag, just in case." She swung the bag forward to the counter. Tim took the baby from her and smiled down at him. "You can call the captain or myself, if you need us."

"He'll be fine, Commander."

She left the nursery with some reticence, and headed up to the counseling office. It would have been her office -- she couldn't stop thinking about that, as she stood at the door waiting for admittance. She stood aside as it opened and a young ensign left the office in a hurry. Counselor Curtis came to the door and smiled at her. "Come in, please."

"I like what you've done with the office," Deanna said, glancing around. It was a smaller space than what she'd had before. Curtis had used liberal amounts of green in the decor. There was a white rose in a vase on the corner of the desk. She went to the small sofa with the counselor and sat, folding her hands in her lap. They faced each other, looking at each other.

"The captain actually suggested that I speak with you," Curtis began, her tone apologetic.

Deanna nodded. "All right."

"He -- " Curtis looked and felt quite dismayed. "You were his counselor for quite some time."

There was something about this that didn't seem right. "Are you?"

Curtis blinked.

"Are you his counselor?"

"I -- can't talk to you about that. He hasn't told you?" Curtis' wavering and an underlying disappointment told a story all on its own.

"He didn't. I would guess that you aren't, just from what little I know. He likely wanted you to help me with my own trauma."

"I wasn't aware that you were missing, until they found you on that installation. He and the others talked about you as if you were somewhere being pregnant and convalescing."

"I suppose I was, in a way." She wasn't sure what to do with this information. She'd supposed that the counselor had been aware, that he had spoken to her as a client while she was gone -- it was disappointing. 

Curtis stared at her for a moment. "You seem calmer than I expected, thinking about this."

"It must be the office. I practiced for nearly seven years in a counselor's office, I had to be calm, with clients."

"So you aren't calm, about being held captive?"

"I don't know how I feel about it. I spent half of my time unconscious, and the rest focusing on the baby, waiting for someone to come for me."

"Maybe I should ask this a different way. What symptoms are you experiencing?"

"Nightmares. Occasional emotional numbness, or anxiety without apparent connection to anything. Fairly typical of someone returning from something so terrifying as that."

"Tell me about the nightmares."

Deanna took a moment to organize her thoughts. "They're vague. I wake up with a sense of being held down by my arms, or being smothered. I'm terrified. My husband comforts me and we have to comfort the baby because my reaction to the nightmare wakes him."

Curtis was a little lost at this point, and anxious. She didn't show it -- she had a good counselor face. Slight smile, eyes serious. "You've been back for one night, you had more than one nightmare -- I thought you looked tired."

"That and needing to feed the baby. And Jean-Luc spent about an hour thinking serious thoughts, which created a certain amount of tension that also kept me awake."

That was confusing for Curtis. She went through a moment of internal struggle.

"Maybe this wasn't a good idea," Deanna said gently.

Now a sense of failure began, and Curtis looked away -- and Deanna remembered that the captain had told her to speak to her.

"I don't really have enough time to be in treatment long enough -- I'm probably not going to be aboard for long. Jean-Luc was talking about taking time off, and taking me back to Earth. It's hardly reasonable to expect progress in only one or two sessions. And I don't think I'm quite ready to talk about it yet -- I think part of my problem is that I'm still in shock. Some of the feelings of unreality are more about thinking that I might wake up back in that room, after dreaming I'm here and safe."

Curtis looked at her again, relief in her eyes. "Are you sure?"

"You're also uncertain. It occurred to me that it might be difficult to set aside that I'm the captain's wife, and that can be troublesome, he's your commanding officer -- not knowing what I might say to him about you might be anxiety-provoking."

An embarrassed smile, at that. "Or that you're Counselor Troi?"

Deanna frowned. "What does that have to do with anything? Counselors get counseling themselves, we all do."

"But we also tend to go to counselors of our choosing. Would you pick a counselor with less experience than yourself? I read some of your work when I was working through my doctorate."

"You're selling yourself short. If you were selected for this position, someone thought you could take on Captain Picard. I know his reputation."

She rolled her eyes. "I don't think that could have been the assumption. It's not as though I really could."

Now it was clear, what she'd sensed before. And Deanna thought about her first impression, formed on the bridge the day before, and sighed. It wasn't her that did not like Cassandra Curtis, it was Jean-Luc. Some of his feelings had been obvious to her, but she'd not paid attention to who they belonged to. "What ship were you on before you came aboard?"

"The _Bellerophon_. Captain Holloway promoted me, and then I was considering other posts -- it was a good ship but not so large and without the variety of clientele. I told him I wanted something challenging." She smiled sadly and shrugged. 

"Ben is one of Jean-Luc's friends. Were you his counselor?"

"No. He never needed that kind of work. Most of our missions were transporting flag officers, patrolling, a few skirmishes here and there, a few scientific missions, humanitarian aide, once in a while a diplomatic mission -- and I rarely got to participate in diplomacy. When I expressed an interest he thought being on the _Enterprise_  would give me more opportunities for diplomatic experience."

"Which is true. Were you stationed on a ship prior to being on the _Bellerophon_ , or was that your first one?"

"I spent a year aboard the _Yamato_  as an assistant counselor."

"And transferred off before she was destroyed, obviously." Deanna tried not to think about that too much. More than a thousand lives snuffed out by a computer malfunction. She'd sensed them all, there one second, gone the next. "I suppose Captain Holloway was fairly easygoing with you, at least? Counselors aren't always treated like line officers despite being line officers."

She'd hit pay dirt; Curtis grimaced. "It's that obvious that I'm inadequate, I suppose."

"There are other captains like him, you know. The way to get their attention is to beat them at their own game. Regulations say that if the doctor or the counselor deems it necessary they are to receive treatment. I made the case fairly early that I couldn't do my job if he didn't come talk to me, and if that isn't enough you make the case that you should know more about him, so you can tell when there's something wrong."

"How... manipulative."

"There's a fine line between persuasive and manipulative. Strictly speaking, we manipulate people in therapy -- with their permission and full awareness, with agreed-upon goals. If Starfleet wants you to, does that make it easier?" Deanna smirked at the thought of how begrudgingly Jean-Luc had cooperated at first, and gradually gotten to the point that he relaxed and actually started to talk. "You could be honest and call the initial phase building rapport, but he'll be less inclined to participate if you don't directly tie it to treatment."

Curtis frowned, suddenly shifting from slight amusement and an appreciation for what she was saying to a concerned, wary state that made Deanna wonder what she was thinking about.

"Commander?"

It startled her. "Call me Cassie, please. I was just -- thinking about how I might have made that work. I'm not sure I could have. I approached him when I came aboard, to talk about meeting -- he dismissed me. And -- "

"You're going to tell me that he was curt, easily angered, all about duty, no small talk, no time for anything outside duty. Didn't look at people, really. Data shared as much with me when he came by. The captain missed me. Overcompensated, went back to what he was before that counselor he used to have went to work on him."

"So you did just what you said, when he was like that," Cassie said. "So you are the better counselor."

Deanna thought about that. "Actually, I neglected to tell you the first step. I had to start treating him like a friend. I almost said that I made friends with him, except it isn't as easy as starting to chat with someone you meet at a party -- you have to work around rank. Just a little chitchat about something he finds interesting, here and there, when you're on the bridge and nothing's happening. I had to be the one who found a way to slip a joke into conversation. Of course, I wasn't attempting to do it when he was trying to find his wife, so even that might not have helped."

"You're trying to tell me it's not me."

"He was talking to another counselor, before. He switched counselors when he started to feel differently about me. I know that it isn't you, because he's perfectly capable of engaging with another counselor. Now that I think about it... he probably didn't want to talk to you because you would expect him to process the loss of his wife, and he knew I wasn't dead. And that would make him sound a little... crazy."

"He knew you weren't dead?"

"It's hard to explain." Deanna smiled at it. "Betazoid Mind Magic, if you will. It's something like a bond between Vulcan spouses, only less defined. And I suspect, knowing how he's been in the past, that being pressed to discuss even the possibility of my being gone for good would have kept him from maintaining that determination to find me. Dogged optimism, I suppose you could call it."

Cassie cocked her head, her expression dubious. "Are you manipulating me now?"

"If you want to see it that way, yes, I'm manipulating you to see that his choice to be as he is does not make you inadequate."

Cassie grinned, but folded forward to put her face in her hands. She sat up straight again, feeling resigned to her fate. "Maybe I should just request another transfer."

"Come with me, before you go that far."

Cassie followed her to the bridge, feeling more and more anxious the closer they got to the ready room. Deanna tapped the button and took Cassie's arm, led her in, and saw her over to the two chairs in front of the captain's desk. Jean-Luc watched them seat themselves in silence.

"Why do I have a bad feeling about this?"

"I've brought your counselor with me so you can apologize to her for making her believe it's her fault that you won't treat her like your ship's counselor."

He sat upright and scowled. But he surprised Cassie -- he thought it over, and then gave her a nod. "She's right," he said, sounding quite reasonable and calm. "I could only see you as a threat. I didn't think about anything other than... I had a lot on my mind, Counselor. I regret that your duty and what you would assume of my behavior weren't in there somewhere. Please accept my apology."

Cassie was in shock, but managed a nod.

"I'd like to think that you might have realized your mistake in time -- it's been three months, since the ship was launched?" Deanna asked. "Surely you wouldn't have pushed her away for seven months as you did me."

He was embarrassed -- he covered it by scowling, and then by sniping back at her. "If you had simply come home I wouldn't have been so distracted in the first place!"

"I'll make a note of that. I'll schedule the next stint in captivity at a more convenient time -- give you my return date, so you'll be less anxious?"

Jean-Luc gave a growling harrumph of disapproval, and ran for cover to the replicator alcove. "Would either of you care for anything?"

"Earl Grey, hot," Deanna said, glancing at Cassie.

Having a cup of tea in hand always soothed him, and Deanna sipped in tandem -- Cassie sniffed hers, wrinkled her nose, took a taste, wrinkled her nose again, and tried.

"The bergamot may be a little strong if you usually have sweet tea," Deanna said.

"Thank you, sir," Cassie said, trying again to sip without making a face.

"Perhaps we should start with couples counseling," Deanna said, as if that would even be acceptable. "I have some things I'd like to discuss. I realized just today that we argued so much about Lucas' first name that we never discussed whether he would be a Picard or a Troi."

Jean-Luc stared at her with dismay. "You said that depended on which planet we were on."

"Unless we decide otherwise -- it can, or we can decide we are all Troi."

That warranted an eyebrow lift. "There's a third option, I think."

Cassie went back and forth as if watching a tennis match.

Deanna leaned forward a little. "So we can discuss all the options well enough, without the counselor, as we've generally done with every other issue. Or we can include her, if you're not inclined to talk to her one on one?"

Jean-Luc clenched his jaw. Probably biting back the urge to snap at her, or dismiss her, which he couldn't do, since she was no longer in his chain of command.

"Maybe she can help you decide between those options. I think I'll take my tea and go back to our quarters. Take a nap." She got up and left with her cup in hand.

When he showed up in their quarters some time later, she was just getting up from the nap, returning to the living room as he came in. "Did you have a nice chat with your counselor?"

"You could have kicked my ass without her present," he grumbled. But he wasn't angry, more grumpy and embarrassed.

"She didn't know how to kick your ass into counseling. She didn't have any way of knowing -- I wasn't even sure what I was doing when I came aboard, when it came to you. She was thinking about a transfer."

He smiled, just a little, and glanced at the crib. And did a double-take.

"He's still in the nursery. Want to come with me to retrieve him?"

Deanna felt his hand in the small of her back, as they went down the corridor, and decided that she actually liked being Mrs. Picard instead of one of his officers.


	68. Scoping Out the Elephant

The ship reached Deep Space Nine on the fourth day after Deanna's rescue. It then became obvious to her how things had changed -- Jean-Luc was as tense as if beginning a difficult mission.

"The nightmares resolved faster than I thought they might," he said, putting on his jacket.

"That's because you're here. I think I'm past the worst of it. I'm feeling grounded again."

"Are you up to hearing the rest of the story? What happened in your absence?"

Deanna put the hairbrush on the dressing table, and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She looked like herself -- her breasts were still fuller, but that would change after Lucas finished the transition to the bottle. She wasn't in uniform. Another brilliant blue dress, this one with some embroidery in a darker blue along the hems, and some creative hairstyling with braids, made her smile -- she had time now to do research, find new things to wear and new ways to do her hair. She knew she would be bored if it continued for very long -- once she recovered fully she would want more. More than a baby and clothes, and spending time with friends, and reading books.

"I think I am," she said as she stood up and turned to him. They'd eaten breakfast with Alexander, and since this was not a school day he had gone on to spend time with Garvey and some of the other kids in the gym, playing ball. The new more independent version of her son was thawing, figuring out how to be with her again, but the days of clinging were gone. And then while she showered and dressed, Jean-Luc had taken Lucas down to the nursery along with a supply of breast milk. He had said he had something they needed to discuss before going to the station.

"Come with me."

She stared at him, recognizing the quiet request for what it was -- this was Captain Picard approaching a family member to inform them of a loss, approaching a crew member to inform them of a demotion -- he really did not want to do this but was resolute. "All right."

He led her to the holodeck. As they walked, she sensed him collecting his thoughts, organizing the words and the approach. But when she took his hand he didn't pull away. Quite the opposite. He slowed, turned and touched her face, gripped her shoulder. Then he led her into the room. Instead of calling up a program, he ordered two chairs, and they sat on the yellow-on-black grid.

"You were in bed, in the apartment, for almost a week after we returned from Bajor. We were all very worried because you were having such difficulties -- not sleeping well, having nightmares and apparently you were being so sensitive that you reacted to sensed emotions even asleep. Alexander was a great help, you were calmer with one of us around and he spent a lot of time helping me, and I was in the kitchen getting coffee while he sat with you, and then he shouted -- I ran in to see you being beamed out of the bed, and that was the last time we saw you until a month later."

Deanna sat stunned and took that in. "A month later?"

"Computer, load Picard 455-A."

The grid shifted to a frozen simulation of a city street. Their chairs were in a corridor at Starfleet Command, and there she was, wearing a green dress of a style she usually wore, in mid-stride.

"They thought it was you," Jean-Luc said. "This was taken by a surveillance camera after she used your clearance and got all the way into the fleet admiral's office. Elena knew you were missing. She called security, when the clone failed to respond to her as you would have. Security pursued and stunned her. The medical examiner determined that she had never been pregnant, and then it was a quick guess that this was a clone -- they tested for several methods of cloning and that was confirmed."

Deanna stared at the mirror image of herself. "What was she trying to accomplish?"

"The clone expressed interest in returning to your former position as adjutant. Computer, load Picard 455-B."

The simulation transitioned to a representation of the foyer at Command. An obviously not-pregnant version of her, in a purple dress, was standing at the information desk. 

"She didn't make it any further," Jean-Luc said grimly. "No one was certain what the goal of this visit was. The clone didn't even have a fully developed personality. I suspect it was to make a point to me, and to Elena. They would have known better than to think we would be fooled, after the first failed attempt. Cancel program." The room returned to the grid, except for the chairs they were using.

"How many more of these clones have there been?" Deanna shouted, leaping up and starting to pace. Her head started to throb, and she realized she was swinging fists. Holding her head in her hands, she tried to breathe without sobbing. She had been in the room for _five months._ Adult versions of clones could be created in a few days, trained in a few weeks. For a full personality it could take months -- there was no way yet to transfer a person into a clone, however. But they could have sent versions of her to commit crimes all over the Federation, by now.

"There was one other reported incident. We think one of the clones facilitated the theft of a decommissioned Oberth class ship, from the boneyards at Saturn station. She seduced one of the security officers, cracked the prefix code and made off with the vessel. She had some help -- one of the vessels that gave chase detected a dozen lifesigns aboard, before it gave them the slip. They had to sneak in with antimatter, dilithium, and other components removed from the ship -- it was a complex operation. The manner in which that was done suggests to me that one of those dozen lifesigns must have been Will Riker. And then, a week later, on one of the worlds in the Demilitarized Zone, an agent took this -- computer, load Picard 455-C."

A somewhat blurry hologram of a dirty street on a border planet, with scattered pedestrians and ramshackle buildings, familiar enough -- the world she had been on undercover had been like this. But the two people closest to the chairs were clear enough. Will Riker and Deanna Troi, hand in hand, dressed in trousers and shirts and smiling at each other.

Deanna stared at the hologram open-mouthed, and she couldn't breathe for a few minutes. Jean-Luc canceled the program and came to her. Took her hands and pulled her in, held her stiff body against his chest. She tried to think about the situation.

"That facility, where was it? Where was I being held?" she asked angrily. "Did anyone else escape before it was destroyed?"

"We detected no escape pod or shuttle, or other vessel, in the area. The facility itself was in a remote part of the Demilitarized Zone. The building was rubble by the last detonation. Scans indicated no life present in the asteroid, at the end. No energy signatures, no life sustaining atmosphere, no sign of anything other than wreckage."

A horrible thought made her stomach hurt. "Is Lucas... okay? I didn't even ask when we were in sickbay. I -- "

"Deanna," he interjected. He kissed her cheek, and sighed. "You are fine. The baby is fine. Nothing unexpected or out of the ordinary about either of you, and Beverly looked for signs of any tampering long and hard -- there's nothing there. Except -- one of your ovaries is missing. The method they are using works better with ova from a donor."

A bubble of fire arose in her chest, and when she pulled away from him he followed, slowly, as she paced a wild circuit of the room. As if he wanted to catch her, if she needed to be caught. She found her voice again as she subdued the rage at last. "What else?" she demanded in a tight, tearful voice. "What about Beverly? Why did they have her there and take her away again?"

"From our perspective, Beverly vanished from her apartment and then reappeared three weeks later, much to Wesley's relief -- she told us they beamed her out, and then she was held in a cell on a ship for a while, and then she woke up in the room with you -- she was there for a week, until the baby was born, and then they beamed her away while you slept and returned her to Earth. She didn't see or speak to anyone, throughout the experience. The only thing that she had with her when she returned was a chip -- a recording of Will, or Thomas, telling us that you wouldn't be hurt. That they knew it was important to have someone you would trust help you with the birth."

"I don't understand, they do terrible things, but they go out of their way to do things like that?" She crossed her arms tightly and glared at the floor. Then as she thought about everything she remembered Thomas. "The coordinates in the smallest file are important," she said aloud. "Thomas told me that before he sent me back. Do you still have the chip, with all the files he gave me?"

It led them back to their quarters, where Jean-Luc retrieved the chip from his safe. As they went out to his desk to find the file, Kate arrived. At the chime Jean-Luc admitted her. She wasn't in uniform, of course.

"Good morning," she said, and the way she looked at them, how she felt, told Deanna that she knew what was going on. Deanna had known they had all been discussing how she was doing without her; Beverly in particular showed up at regular intervals and not been as open as usual, about what her scans revealed.

A pit formed in her stomach, at the thought that they might have suspected she was a more sophisticated, more believable kind of clone. Jean-Luc didn't believe that. He knew, and he hadn't wavered in that belief, but the others would suspect just as she would, if their situation were reversed.

What was _their_ goal in all of this? Why clones?

Deanna stood next to Jean-Luc's chair and watched him pull up the file. Asking the computer to locate the coordinates led to a sector map -- they were a point in space, apparently. A point not even in a star system. 

"Thomas said to go there," she said. "That's in the Miloris sector."

"What are you doing?" Kate said, alarmed. 

"What's in that sector, Kate?" Deanna asked. 

The hostility of her tone stopped Kate before she finished crossing the room. "I'm not sure, actually. I've heard it mentioned here and there."

"I'm going to have Data look into it. Deanna," Jean-Luc said, with enough warning in his voice to get her attention. He looked up at her with stern affection -- his expression was stern, his emotions said worry and love.

She didn't want to stop being angry, because she knew that would send her into anguish, and his response was to stand up and meet her gaze, and think about the station. He thought about their friends, and the war, and the fact that they had a meeting with the fleet admiral in just fifteen minutes. 

"What did Kate do?" She turned to face the doctor and immediately, Kate was on edge even more, but stood her ground.

"I made a bad assumption. They don't indiscriminately target people," Kate said. "They only do things they believe are protective -- it isn't personal gain, motivating them. That you and the baby are still alive means they don't see you as a real threat to the Federation, in spite of what you've done. This information campaign, spreading the word and letting people stand together in the face of threats that work better on isolated individuals -- it hurt them, but it's meaning only that they are changing strategies."

"What was your assumption?" Jean-Luc said. Apparently he wasn't aware of her guilt. He'd kept her aboard, not even as crew, to protect her, evidently. That much Deanna could assume. 

"I assumed that the people I was talking to were actually the people I was talking to," Kate said. "I think they are using clones and have been for a while, to defray the risk to themselves. That there are actually fewer of them than we thought. I think I -- " She stood for a moment, and Deanna wondered if the engrammatic disassociation had actually not been resolved; there was an odd quality to Kate's emotions. 

"Kate?"

"After I was integrated, after I wasn't split in two any more, I remembered a conversation I had with Kyle." A lot of regret as she spoke -- it reminded Deanna that the people who had been integrated would have that kind of adjustment to make, owning the side of them that had been used to do things the person would never have done. Kate looked like she wanted to cry. "He wanted to know what I thought your abilities were, what makes you different -- he's met Betazoids before and he's tried to conscript them but that usually fails."

"When did you talk to him?" Jean-Luc asked, not sounding as upset as he was about that.

"That was after I spoke to Deanna on subspace, while Will's court-martial was pending. Kyle made me nervous for Deanna. Even when I was in the other ego state I was still myself, enough to worry about friends. It was part of the structure they created to make that side of me compliant to a few people, though, so I wasn't able to lie or just refuse."

"You told him about my empathy," Deanna said. "You told him everything." It was generally assumed that empathy wasn't so useful as telepathy. A less simplistic understanding would lead anyone to think it was more useful than telepathy.

"It would be useful, I suppose, to have agents who can manipulate based on what -- " Jean-Luc stopped at the chiding look Deanna gave him.

 "We need to test Kate's DNA, and Beverly's," she said. "We need to start testing everyone's -- if they can beam people out that way, make it untraceable, we are all a risk."

Both Jean-Luc and Kate went quiet for a bit with that. "But you could tell, couldn't you? You could sense someone's individuality," Kate asked.

"We need to verify that before we go any further, don't we? I've always assumed that, and we need more than my abilities to be certain of people, now."

Jean-Luc sighed audibly. "We're already doing that, Deanna. We tested Beverly when they returned her. She's not been compromised -- they didn't harvest anything from her to clone her, that we can tell."

Deanna was still thinking about it all -- including four days ago, when Leila and Beverly were frightened to say anything. "Kate, what did they do to you after I was taken?"

Jean-Luc was immediately on alert, for some reason. It occurred to Deanna that Kate might not actually have told anyone, yet. She stared intently at the doctor and crossed her arms.

"I ran into Will -- no," she immediately backtracked, feeling shamed, "I can't say that. I'm going to be as honest as I can. I contacted him. There's a channel. Codes. I had it in my head that he might tell me where you were. Of course he didn't do that. Of course he laughed in my face, called me names, mocked all of us. He told me it was all for nothing, everything we did, and that if they wanted to they could kill us all, but it's not about that. They've only let us think we're succeeding because it's easy enough to counter what we're doing."

"And you think he's told you the truth, that he isn't intimidating you to make us believe that and give up," Deanna said. "If you're right and they are using clones because there aren't so many of them, we're closer than we think."

Kate looked at the floor, feeling defeated. "You have more optimism than I thought you did."

"They're using the clones to discredit me," Deanna said. "Call into question my identity -- next some high ranked admiral will start to decide that I should not be trusted. Because why would they keep me alive, all that time, once they had what they needed? Neutralizing my influence and by association, Captain Picard's."

"So what do we do next?" Jean-Luc said, looking up at Deanna, leaning back in the desk chair.

Kate blinked, flinched, and turned wide blue eyes on her. "Wait," she began.

"Oh, you thought all this was my idea?" Jean-Luc said, with a hint of amusement tipping up the corner of his lips.

"The admiral is on the station. We should go talk to her. Kate, you can come with us."

The three of them headed for the transporter room. Kate hung back, walking behind them. Not her usual. She was taken aback. Thinking hard. Deanna held on to Jean-Luc's arm and leaned on him in the lift, thinking about it. Knowing he was aware of her thoughts.

"I think we should consider moving up the timetable," she murmured.

"How much?"

It generated a serious spike in anxiety -- Kate was afraid. Deanna hid a frown that her concern came true by pressing her cheek against Jean-Luc's shoulder.

"A month, perhaps."

"We should send in -- well. Here we are," Jean-Luc said, as they entered the transporter room.

"Hello, Chief," Deanna said, to the young man at the console. Then she saw Data, stepping up on the platform ahead of them. "Hi, Data. Are you going to see your friend, Dr. Bashir?"

"I am. You are looking much better, Deanna."

"Thank you."

They materialized on Deep Space Nine, and Data went the other way as they left the transporter room. Kate continued to emit high levels of frustration and fear, all the way to the bridge, where they were welcomed by Captain Sisko and taken into his office. There were several security guards around, and they weren't the Bajoran officers that predominated on the station.

Elena rose from a chair as they came in, smiling happily, and surprised everyone, in varying degrees, by hugging Deanna. "I'm so glad to see you're well. You've had the baby, I see."

"Yes, he's in the ship's nursery. How are you? I saw security guards out there, are they yours, because of the messages you sent?"

"There is a price to pay sometimes, we all know that," Elena said. "But the impact was larger than you anticipated. We've accumulated so much information on their operations from people they duped into complying with their orders."

"And then I'm being targeted by them, via this campaign of clones -- how many of them have there been so far?"

Elena lost the smile. "Come sit down, won't you?"

So they did, and Ben Sisko offered beverages. With the niceties observed he went to his own chair. "I'm glad to see you, Deanna," he said, startling Kate again. 

"I'm quite happy to be here myself, Ben. I hope you don't mind if we take advantage of the extra security of being in your office."

"Not at all." He was a little confused, but wasn't showing it. But Kate was starting to feel lost. She'd thought they had let her into the "know" and Deanna was pushing her off balance.

"So you said you've collected more information?" Deanna asked, turning to smile at Elena.

"I brought you a copy," Elena said, sliding a chip across the desk. Out of the corner of her eye, Deanna saw Kate following the movement with her eyes and a slight turn of the head. Deanna took the chip, closed her hand around it. "Essentially, we have a short list."

"So the people who are at the heart of everything," Deanna said. "As opposed to the long list we already had. Good."

"There are a lot of stories on that as well, from many officers. I think we're close."

"You can't," Kate blurted at last, finally tipped off the pinnacle of her anxiety.

Heads turned toward her, and Deanna felt Jean-Luc's hand wrap around her left, where it lay on her left thigh.

Deanna gave the silence a moment, as Kate's anxiety rebuilt itself slowly. "We can't what, Kate?"

"You can't make a move on them."

Deanna lowered her brows and frowned at her. Finally, the doctor glanced away, her eyes flitting from the viewport to the table to her hands in her own lap, and back to Deanna.

"You'll fail, if you try," she murmured.

"Right," Deanna drawled. "We've failed so often in impossible situations."

Jean-Luc snorted at that. "You have a knack for sarcasm," he muttered.

Elena picked up the cup that Ben had brought her. "So we're moving on to phase two," she said.

"Operation Eradication," Deanna announced. She happened to look at Jean-Luc as she said it, and caught him raising his eyebrows at her. "It works. It rhymes."

"I'm almost afraid to know what you called it when you recovered me from the Borg."

Deanna grinned at that. "I don't think we slowed down long enough to give that one a name. We did, however, come up with a name for that one time we picked you up in the shuttle, during that time loop when the ship was being drawn into -- "

"I don't think I want to know what you called it," Jean-Luc interjected.

"You cannot do what you're intending to do," Kate exclaimed firmly, waving her hands to add emphasis.

"What do you think we're going to do, exactly?"

That brought her to a stop. She stared at Deanna for another moment or three. "I guess... you wouldn't kill them. Prosecute them, maybe."

"That worked so well with Will, didn't it?" Deanna smiled sadly. "Look. If you don't want to be here while we're discussing it, perhaps you should go get a rakatajino and wait for us?"

"Maybe I should," Kate said. "Excuse me." She got up and hurried out. Jean-Luc turned his head to watch her go, watch the door close in her wake.

"Data will pick her up on the Promenade," Deanna said as he reached for his comm badge. "He and Dr. Bashir will be out there waiting."

"You don't trust her," Ben exclaimed, incredulous. "Why have you been speaking so openly with her around?"

"Good question," Elena said.

"Don't underestimate Deanna's ability to carry out a long con," Jean-Luc said with a wry grin. "Or to keep a secret."

Deanna picked up her tea and slumped in her chair. "She's confirmed that it's possible to find and do something about them, so far. She has a way of contacting _someone_. A little more pushing and I should be able to get her to cough up how to find Will. If Data doesn't catch her trying to use a public terminal to find someone to talk to about Operation Eradication."

"I have to assume that the only reason we've seen the immature, less convincing clones of you so far is that they are in the process of working out their own long con -- they'll actually attempt to replace you at some point," Jean-Luc said. "If she's going to tell them what you've said and done today. She was surprised that we treated you as if you were in charge. You've set yourself up for another kidnapping."

"What are you going to do next, then? Or is that something I shouldn't know?" Ben asked.

"Oh, it's something you'll do," Deanna said with a smile. "I think we need to apprehend another clone of me. Can we talk to Kasidy?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Section 31 doesn't care about fiddly little nuisances like right and wrong...
> 
> First season Deep Space Nine featured an episode wherein someone tried to frame Odo by killing a clone of himself in such a way that only a shapeshifter could have done it -- genetic material in the area matched the victim, because the killer was the victim. The clone was replicated by Bashir in just three days -- the tissue grew in a tank to an adult version of the original. The problem of course is that the clone won't necessarily have the ability to act like, or sound like, the original, but for purposes of playing games with the heads of your adversaries, or bombing facilities or other suicide missions.... with a little more time, clones can likely be taught enough to be functional persons. Is a few months adequate? hmm.


	69. Family Therapy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Presupposes your knowledge of the basic events of DS9. In short: canon sez Kasidy went to prison for the aiding and abetting of Maquis activities by delivering/smuggling cargo to them. Michael Eddington, Starfleet security officer, turns on Sisko and defects to the Maquis along with a very important shipment of equipment in the same episode as Kasidy gets caught. (Season 4, episode 22)

"I haven't really talked to anyone in a long time," Kasidy exclaimed. "You warned me off dealings with the Maquis."

Ben sat at his desk with a serious expression, watching his girlfriend anxiously answering questions. Deanna thought about asking him to step out but knew how that could be construed. Kasidy was telling the truth. But she wasn't exactly being completely forthcoming -- it was the same sense of hesitance that Deanna was all too familiar with, in client after client, in Kate for the many past interactions with her since she'd left the _Enterprise_.

"I understand," Deanna said, bridging the small gap between their chairs to place her hand on Kasidy's. "I want to help the people on the Demilitarized Zone who need the help. I want to do that by removing the agents who are using these people to their own ends, taking away their freedom and sometimes their lives as they are either killed or captured by the Dominion or the Cardassians on missions. If there's anyone you might have spoken to, anyone you might have seen on the station you know to be in the Maquis...."

"I'll think about it," Kasidy said. "Will you be coming for dinner tonight?"

"Yes, of course. Thank you, for any help you can give us." Deanna watched her leave the office, then turned to Elena. "She'll help, she just needs a little time."

"The longer I watch you do things like this, the more I appreciate that you're not intending to take over the galaxy." Elena did a slight double-take. "You aren't... are you?"

"Elena, really," Deanna chided. She faced Ben across his desk. "Is your Starfleet security officer still on the station? Eddington?"

"Yes, would you like to talk to him?" Ben reached for the console on his desk.

"Not here. Not in front of the admiral, or you." She paused and thought about it, and got an answer in seconds. "Jean-Luc found him, patrolling the Promenade."

Elena and Ben exchanged a glance. Jean-Luc had left while they were talking to Kasidy, to find Kate. "So you are actually telepathic?"

"Only with people to whom I am very close. And it's not exactly the same, as my mother's telepathy. So I'm going to accidentally bump into him and see how he reacts to me. I'm going to determine whether or not someone like him has ever seen one of my clones."

"Let us know if you need any help," Ben said.

"I'll be back in a bit. I have my comm badge in my pocket."

The Promenade wasn't very busy. The officers she was looking for were standing just down from Quark's outside a closed shop, and as she approached, she thought about how she wanted to approach Eddington. Jean-Luc turned to her as she came up to them.

"There you are," she said with a hint of scolding and a brilliant smile. "I've been looking for you."

"I was just talking to Mr. Eddington about -- well, all right," he said with a chuckle as she clung to his arm and gave him a nuzzle in a manner she hadn't resorted to since she was sixteen. "You're going to drag me off to a store, aren't you?"

"I missed you," she pouted. Then she pretended to notice Eddington staring for the first time. "What do you want?"

He shook his head as if shaking off the slight accusation in her tone. "I believe we've met before. But I don't remember your name -- Diana?"

She tilted her head. "You met me before? Do you mean here, on the station?"

"Once, yes, you were with Captain Sisko. And then on... was it Colara Four?"

"We've been so many places, I don't remember." She nudged Jean-Luc. "Were we on Cholera Four?"

"No. Excuse us, Commander," Jean-Luc said, giving the man a look that apologized and said 'you know how it is' before putting an arm around Deanna and guiding her away toward Quark's. He tolerated her clinginess as they came into the bar, and then tolerated the stares as they approached the table where Kate sat with Data. Deanna stepped away from him and slid into a chair.

"So what did that little show buy us?" he asked.

"He's just a Maquis, not one of _them_ , and Colara Four is one of the places a clone has been -- I've never been there myself. We should go back to Ben's office." Deanna stared at Kate across the table. "You need to tell us everything, or leave."

Kate went into a speechless state of shock, for a short time. Jean-Luc recovered quicker. "I thought she might be holding out on us."

Deanna matched his stern look. "Either she's nervous on our behalf or she's afraid we'll actually succeed and it will be to her own detriment. It's no matter to me, she's withholding information that could help us. Are you telling them what we're planning? Have you told them anything sensitive about us since you left Starfleet Command?"

With each question, Kate recoiled, but in slightly different ways in response to the two questions -- first defensively, and then with guilt. "I don't have to tell them anything. When they suspect something they need to address is starting they put an observer in the mix. It won't be what you expect. They don't always work with threats -- sometimes they present credentials of a legitimate organization, and have a completely different objective, because they are being honest while their handler is the problem."

Jean-Luc had a few thoughts about that, and shared them readily when Deanna wondered about it. Among them were his concerns about the current counselor, and his thoughts about Kate Pulaski as had experienced her when she was his CMO. Deanna masked the moment of contemplation and inward focus with a glance downward, as if thinking about Kate's answer.

"You don't have to tell them, but you confessed that you did. And you did so again after you completed the process of reintegration. Because you're terrified of them. You're letting your own trauma get in the way of helping us."

Kate crossed her arms so tightly that it qualified as hugging herself, and her eyes took on a desolate look that the counselor in Deanna wanted to be therapeutic. But this was not a session. It was a bar, and the Ferengi eyeing them from afar was on the verge of coming over, but hesitating. She glared at him and he immediately focused on wiping down the counter in front of him.

"You're right," Kate said at last, so softly that Deanna barely caught it. "But -- if you knew, what they've done."

Deanna stood up, and waited. Jean-Luc, and the uncharacteristically- quiet Data, got up as well, and waited with her. Kate stood slowly and nodded to her, and they all left the bar together.

When they crossed from the lift to Sisko's office, Kira and Dax looked up from their consoles to watch them go in. Elena and Ben were still seated on his side of the desk, mugs in hand, and both turned to look as they came in and settled in the chairs facing them. Data hesitated until Deanna gestured at the empty chair at the end, which he took.

"You need to tell us what you know, Kate. Do you have insight into the reasons they are cloning me, repeatedly?"

Kate kept staring at the table. "I'm not sure. I don't think I know enough to really help. And I'm still not clear how you intend to approach this! Where you would keep them, on what grounds?"

"We may want to start with wherever they are making the clones," Jean-Luc said. "A decidedly illegal process. Certainly there must be one or more people involved in that."

"The ones you are aware of, and I'm speaking here of individuals who are not pawns but decision-makers," Deanna said. "Ones who give instructions. Give us those names."

But Kate struggled with it, still. She meshed her fingers and rested her forearms on the table in front of her, and stared down at them with a frown. 

"There are several at Command," Deanna began. "Darius Beaumont."

Now Elena stared at Deanna, as did Sisko, and Jean-Luc shifted in his chair, unsettled -- but unsurprised. Kate started to feel nauseated but raised her eyes and gave a very slight nod.

"Mira, as well. Admiral Ross. Admiral Delaney."

"Are you certain?" Elena blurted. 

Deanna smiled sadly. Thought again, about the things she'd stayed up late last night, mulling all of it over for the millionth time, including her experiences at Command. "If these individuals truly are working with the Federation's future in mind, they'll look like any one of us, lacking only the sense of ethics that keeps any one of us from the sorts of deeds that further the Federation at the expense of another person, or civilization. These people are all in positions where they already have legitamite authority, or they're close enough to Command that they can be aware of the bigger picture. Some of them feel completely justified; others may simply prioritize and feel guilt about what they do. Caught up in it for years, until they become part of it, and it becomes part of them. Like Kate."

Kate Pulaski had never, in her memory, been this way -- she'd been confident as a doctor and almost confrontational in social interactions with the crew, particularly Data. The woman in front of Deanna began to shake.

"You need to tell us everything," Deanna said. 

Kate blinked back tears, nodding, finally caving in to the futility of withholding information.

"You gave Thomas the information. You've been on the edge of telling us everything, but you think it's going to destroy friendships that you valued. While you were on the _Enterprise_  you were in an environment where people embodied all the qualities that your Section 31 cohorts lack -- we appreciated each other, made friends with each other. We saved each other's lives. We didn't leave people behind. You appreciated that about us. You wanted that, again, after losing it in self-preservation, being part of an organization that by definition cannot care about individuals."

"And you've been giving me chance after chance to choose it," Kate exclaimed. "If you knew all along, why didn't you confront me before?"

"I had to wait until I knew you would be able to decide in our favor, instead of returning to the fold. You can't imagine that I would have sacrificed you for the cause?"

Kate rolled her eyes and started to laugh. "I'll go get a padd."

"No, we'll get you one," Deanna said firmly. "You'll do it here. We'll wait. Leaving you alone while you tell the entire shameful story for the first time can be overwhelming, and I don't feel like dealing with your body."

While Kate recovered from that, Jean-Luc stood to head for the door. "Counselor Troi, tyrant," he commented. "She'll save your life whether you like it or not. I'll go get a padd."

"Is there a possibility of a plea bargain, Admiral?" Data asked, breaking his long silence. Sisko turned to look at Elena as well, hoping on Kate's behalf.

"We'll have to talk about that," Elena said. "But of course it's possible."

"I'm sorry," Deanna said softly. "I don't like accusing people. But I remember more than I did at first about the time I spent in captivity. I remember hearing Darius' voice -- I sensed him. I think I said his name, in shock, and that was why they moved me into a cell and kept me sedated all the time. Thomas probably said something to them, about my being able to recognize people I have met using my empathy. They were talking about long range planning. I think that I will remember more as we talk."

"They contacted me, to request information from your medical records," Kate said. "I tried to get them to tell me where you were."

Jean-Luc returned and passed the padd over Deanna's head to Kate, and looked down at Deanna expectantly. 

"The nursery called you because he's crying inconsolably," Deanna said. "I can tell he's upset."

"I'll go -- I needed a walk anyway. Are we here for a while?"

"No need to stay on my account," Kate said, holding up the padd. "It'll all be here for you later."

"I would like to stay as well," Data said. "If you do not mind."

Deanna thought that was a good idea, given Data's flawless memory. "Let's get started."

\-----------------------

 

Deanna returned to the station and worked her way from the transporter to the Promenade, to Quark's, following her sense of where her husband was. Alexander came with her -- now she drew more looks not because people were interested in her, but because of the spectacle of a Betazoid walking arm in arm with a Klingon. Spending an hour with the baby before changing into a short, form-fitting, silky-gray dress and piling up her hair in half an inverse Picard had helped her recover from hours of probing to pull information from Kate. 

The admiral had taken a copy of everything at the end. She had retired to quarters, with the intent to contact other admirals and the president, and the chiefs of staff who were not identified as having been involved -- now that she had specifics about crimes that had been committed, those could be investigated fully. It was, of course, not the end of the problem. There would be a problem for as long as there were rogue officers taking it upon themselves to interpret Section 31 as leeway to play vigilante. But already some of the measures taken were shifting the course of the war. The admiral now guiding Starfleet operations in the sector had already apprehended some of the agents who'd been entrenched in the Maquis.

Deanna knew she'd be called upon from time to time by the fleet admiral to help. But she thought, with this latest development, that she finally might be able to relax for a while and be just a mother. In fact, with Elena issuing a bulletin to alert Starfleet security far and wide that all her clones were to be apprehended, Deanna thought the best tactic might be to head to France, where clones were least likely to show their faces, and settle in for a while to take care of the baby and watch the rising and setting of the sun, perhaps visit beaches and be a tourist for a while.

"Mom, can I have one of those?" Alexander pointed at the jumja kiosk on the Promenade.

"I don't see why not." She went over with him and got one for him, and they went on into Quark's.

Jean-Luc had a larger table, as with him were the usual -- Geordi, Data, Mike, Leila, Beverly and also, both of the Siskos. They were in the back along the wall, and all of them looked up with smiles as she approached with Alexander. "Lucas is in the nursery," she said, sitting next to Jean-Luc. Alexander took the last chair next to her and worked on his candy happily.

"Everything all right?" Beverly asked.

"Oh, yes. Elena is mustering the troops and kicking ass. Kate is back on the ship in her quarters."

Alexander stopped chewing on his jumja. "Is he still coming?"

Among other things, over the past two days, they had received a message from Kurn. She had called and discussed having Alexander visit him on the home world, and said he would contact her after arranging passage to Deep Space Nine for a visit. "As far as I know. Have you been thinking about his invitation?"

Alexander glanced down and thought for a few seconds. "I want to see if he'll let me come home in a few weeks, if I go. Because I don't want to stay there."

"I'm sure we can work something out," Jean-Luc said. 

"Where are you going?" Jake Sisko asked. He and Alexander had met when the _Enterprise_  reached the station.

"My uncle invited me to Kronos. To learn to be a warrior." He looked at Deanna and grinned. "I already kind of know, Mom and Dad fight battles all the time, but he means fighting with weapons for glory and honor. I guess that can be useful. And my father would want me to go."

"We could always go, I suppose," Jean-Luc said.

Alexander gaped at his stepfather. "But you're supposed to be on the _Enterprise_ ," he exclaimed.

"Funny thing about that. I can't tell you all the details but we're supposed to be in the area anyway. So if you are wanting to be picked up after a week or two we can do that."

Alexander gave him a toothy grin. "Thanks, Dad."

One of the Ferengi arrived at Deanna's shoulder. "Would you care for something to drink? We have a full complement of fine wines, ales, mixed drinks -- "

"Any Romulan ale?"

That startled everyone at the table. Ben Sisko lost the pleasant smile and seemed to be watching the Ferengi carefully. "Well, ma'am," he exclaimed with a nervous laugh, waving both hands as if to ward off the suggestion that he would ever have such a thing, "you must realize that's an illegal substance. But I do have -- ah, well, I just received a shipment of fine Rigellian ale. Would you care to try it?" And then he looked her in the eye, and went on with more enthusiasm. "You're Betazoid -- it just so happens that I might have something you might be interested in -- have you ever heard of the Chalice of Riix?"

Deanna blinked up at him. "You're going to tell me that you have the Chalice of Riix?"

"I know," the Ferengi exclaimed with a laugh. "It's incredible that such a unique antique might be available here, of all places."

"You don't have the Chalice."

Now it was the Ferengi's turn to act surprised. Jean-Luc chuckled quietly; Quark, or so she assumed it was, glanced at him with a little nervousness. 

"If you have the Chalice you stole it. If you have a cheap imitation of it, you're infringing on the trademarked rights of the Fifth House of Betazed. Either way, you're going to be extradited and put in prison for crimes against the Fifth House."

"I knew I should've brought my mek'leth," Alexander cried.

"Wait," Quark cried, scurrying backward. "I haven't stolen anything!"

"Perhaps you should bring out this chalice, Quark," Sisko said calmly. "Show her -- it sounds like she knows what the real one looks like."

"It's been sitting on my Mother's hearth for the past two hundred years," Deanna exclaimed. "We used to keep chocolate candy in it. Until my grandfather noticed and gave us all headaches shouting about the sacrilege. So. No, you do not have the Chalice, and no, I won't buy it for any price, but I'm sure the Constable will be very interested in seeing what you actually have."

"I, I, no -- oh, you think I said Chalice of Riix, I said I have the Chalice of MEEK," Quark babbled. Sisko rose and followed the Ferengi over to the bar.

"Sit down, Alexander," Jean-Luc told him -- the very large little boy had jumped up and turned as if he was about to run after them. 

"Aw," he moaned, returning to his chair.

"I appreciate your willingness to fight for the House of Troi, but that's not how Betazoid warriors do it. Finish your jumja." Deanna smiled at him and even stroked his hair, as he no longer appreciated. But he smiled back and didn't complain, and picked up the jumja stick he'd dropped on the table.

"Ohhh-kayyyy, I'll be a good Betazoid."

"How does he even know about the Chalice?" Beverly asked. "This is pretty far from Betazed."

Deanna sighed and reached for Jean-Luc's glass, since she'd been too upset to order a drink of her own. "Mother's been here a few times. You know she brags about the damned pot every time she can."

"She showed it to us," Mike said. "It was sort of... moldy."

"Yes," Deanna exclaimed. "What I always told her. She thinks that stuff in the bottom is what's left of Borathim the Boring."

Now there were several of them staring at her, and Jean-Luc had the "here we go again" tolerance of someone who'd just been surprised by something he thought wouldn't happen again. "A relative?"

"An ancestor. Really he was known as Borathim the Bringer of Peace -- more than a thousand years ago, he settled a conflict between two families and brought about the peace and harmony that we continue to have today. I call him Boring, because Mother makes me listen to his famous inauguration speech that put the House of Troi on the map, so to speak, every year on his birthday. It's an official holiday, actually. Borathim Day. We all spend the day honoring his memory and eating tenba, and traditionally one of the children will recite the speech in Betazoid before we all go outside and throw flowers at each other."

Now everyone was really staring -- a few of them at Jean-Luc. Who had a set to his jaw, and raised his eyebrow. Alexander had tilted his head and was considering her as if deciding whether or not she was teasing him.

"What conflict did he settle?" Data asked. Leave it to Data.

"Well, Torim -- she was a daughter in the other family -- had insisted that the Festival of Knaves be held in her province. And Borathim's sister, Benita, insisted that it should be -- "

"There was a conflict about where to have a party?" Leila exclaimed, incredulous.

 "It's Betazed, what else is there to fight about?" Jean-Luc said, being the straight man as usual. 

As the laughter around the table died away again, Sisko returned holding a shiny copper-colored bowl with an intricate design around it. Deanna laughed. "That's far too pretty, the real one looks like an unfinished, lopsided clay pot with a big chip out of the side where Mother dropped it when she was fifteen."

"Captain," came a raspy, familiar voice, and Odo arrived and scrutinized the bowl. "Is this the offending item?"

Deanna stood up and smiled at the Changeling. "I understand you're my new stepfather?"

"Oh," Odo blurted. "Commander Troi. I'm -- it wasn't -- "

"I know," she reassured him, not having the heart to tease as she planned. "She told me why, and that you'd annulled it." Mother's solution to the Tavnian marriage had been divorce-by-marriage, to Odo; she'd fled from her husband all the way to the space station, appealed to the shape shifter for help, and he had rescued her -- helped her retain custody of her baby, which she had returned to Betazed to have. Evidently, Deanna's younger brother had been born four days before she had returned from captivity. When she had contacted Mother via subspace, much to Lwaxana's relief, Mother had still been in the hospital, complaining about the doctors keeping her there. It was still unusual even for a Betazoid to have children at such a late stage of life. 

"All right," Odo said uncertainly.

"This bowl was presented to me as the Chalice of Riix, an heirloom of my family's," Deanna explained, and he nodded in understanding -- so Mother had bragged to him as well. "By Quark. It's not the Chalice but he's trying to sell it as if it is."

"Ah, so it's forgery. Come along, Quark," he growled, taking the bowl from Sisko and heading for the exit.

"But -- my bar," Quark exclaimed, scuttling after the constable. "I did not forge -- the merchant who sold me that item lied to me! I want to make a complaint. Press charges!" They were bickering as they left the bar.

"Are we sure they aren't married?" Beverly asked.

"Not all married couples bicker, you know," Jean-Luc said. 

Mike snorted, and Leila prodded him with an elbow. 

"That counts, I think," Geordi said. 

Beverly kept her focus on Jean-Luc. "You're going to pretend you don't bicker? Alexander, is he telling the truth?"

"Don't look at me, I'm Klingon," he exclaimed with a shrug as he nibbled on the much-diminished jumja.

"I think all married couples bicker," Jake said. "Mom and Dad did. The O'Brien's do."

"You have a limited sample set, Jake," Ben said as he returned to his seat, and his cup of raktajino.

"This Borathim Day, you've never celebrated it, while you've been aboard," Jean-Luc said, as if they'd had any conversation about that.

"You never celebrate Christmas. We have to tie you down to shove birthday cake in your mouth. Not everyone likes holidays."

"Married couples always bicker," Jake said smugly. Ben sighed dramatically and rolled his eyes.

It was, Deanna decided, as good as it would ever get. But she smiled. Her blended family may be multi-cultural, and agree on nothing, but it was better than listening to Borathim's speech and following Mother from one party to the next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One epilogue and I think we're wrapping it up. The clear cut resolution of typical Star Trek episodes isn't possible with this one. But we'll figure out a few more answers before we're done.


	70. And They Lived Happily Ever After As Much As Possible

Deanna sunned herself on the balcony, as she did each morning for half an hour. The door chime didn't have to interrupt her; she knew someone was on the way in, so got up and went inside, silently sliding the clear doors shut behind her. She checked on the children -- Lucas was still in his room playing, and the baby was still asleep -- and pulled the bright blue dress she'd left draped over the back of the couch over her head. When she opened the door, Alexander was there, ready with a smile, coming in for a hug, dropping his huge duffel just inside the door.

"Every time I see you, you're bigger, taller," she said, grinning. At twelve he was the same size as his father had been -- broad-shouldered and his hair tied back in a braid. He wore a jacket over a shirt, dark heavy slacks, his clothing nothing like a traditional Klingon would be even though he was returning from the home world after a lengthy visit with his uncle. "How was your trip home?"

"It was fine, Mom." He put her back on her feet and stood back. "Thanks for arranging the ride home with Captain Holloway, he picked me up on Starbase 324."

"Alexander!" Lucas cried, running out to fling himself at his "brother." At seven, Lucas was less than half Alexander's size and looked Betazoid. He hugged Alexander and started firing questions at him. 

Deanna went to get tea for them while the debriefing continued, with questions ranging from what kind of ship Alexander had ridden home in to what kinds of weapons he'd learned to use while he was on Kronos. And then she had to leave them to check on Sophia, who was waking from her nap and a little cranky. She picked up the two year old from her toddler bed and left the nursery. When she saw Alexander her pouting stopped and she waved her arms, asking to be given to her favorite Klingon, "Zander."

"Hello, Sophie," Alexander said with a growl. He picked her up easily and gave her a toss high into the air, caught her, and she giggled wildly, and started to chant 'again, again.'

"Mom, can I have some ice cream?" Lucas asked.

They were settling at the table in the dining area, each with a bowl of chocolate ice cream, when the usual wave of guests arrived, to see Alexander again. Beverly and Wes were accompanied by Wes' girlfriend, Maria. Not long after they showed up and hugs were given, Leila and Neely came to the door. The living room, large as it was, started to feel full. 

"When do you move?" Beverly asked over her cup of tea. She glanced at the kids, now done with making polite talk with the adults -- Alexander followed Lucas and Neely into the bedroom he shared with Lucas, Sophia still in his arms. It was an awkward phase for Alexander, being so rapidly mature physically but in some respects still keeping one foot in childhood. He was now what Deanna thought of as a 'teenager' Klingon, drawn more and more to the company of adults but still fond of his smaller friends.

"Next week the movers come. I'm going to miss the apartment but it's going to be too hard, we need separate rooms for the children, especially when Alexander is home."

Leila sighed and looked around. "Remember the meetings we had here?"

Deanna nodded and thought about poker games, and the anti-conspiracy conspiracy. They hadn't heard anything about devious activities, since their return to Earth. Jean-Luc had, with some difficulty, set aside command. After two months of the war, the _Enterprise_ had been in several skirmishes that exceeded his tolerance for risks to his wife and child, and after approaching the fleet admiral he accepted a promotion. Which allowed them to return to the apartment he'd kept, with the children. 

"Have you heard from Dr. Pulaski?" Wes asked. It was a question that came up from time to time. After spending a few years in prison Kate had been released, at which point Deanna met with her once for coffee, then the doctor had vanished without a trace. 

"No. She's still gone. I sent a message a few months ago, it's not been opened," Deanna said. 

Beverly gave her a skeptical look. "I don't think we'll see her again."

"I think she was afraid there were still agents around who would see her as a traitor," Leila said. "We never did find Kyle Riker, after all."

Deanna thought that Kyle might have something to do with Kate's disappearance. But the conversation was interrupted -- Sophia toddled out at full speed, and as she came down the steps to the lower level of the living room she fell and slid on her belly with a squawk, prompting Deanna to go pick her up and return to settle with her on her lap.

"At least we figured out the parasite problem," Beverly said.

"We're lucky there weren't more of them." Deanna smiled at her daughter and got a giggle in return. It had turned out that the parasites had been a tool of the Dominion -- there had been a few admirals afflicted, Admiral Ross among them, that were directly involved in the war.

"I think we should talk about the wedding," Leila said with a grin at Maria. "Are we going to look for that special dress again?"

Maria's shy smile put a light in her eyes. She was so happy all the time. Deanna hadn't heard the story of how the two met, but she thought she understood why Wes was so drawn to her. "I'd love to. But Wes and I are supposed to be at school -- evening classes, and I have to study for a test."

"Yeah, we can only stay for an hour or so." Wes had finished a degree and late in his final year decided to add another one, so was still toiling along toward a second doctorate. At some point he might finish. Deanna wondered if Maria had anything to do with his desire to linger instead of just finding a position in warp physics research. There were, she knew, several facilities interested in him.

"It might be something to do tomorrow," Beverly said. "We can meet at that coffee place on the Embarcadero, around two. I can get off early and meet you there, the clinic has been quiet." She had taken a position in the clinic at Command, just practicing medicine, not supervising, and finding it much to her liking. 

"I can do that." Leila turned as Neely, making a plaintive noise, jogged out and leaped at her mother, leaning heavily on her. "What's going on now?"

"Lucas isn't letting me see his boat," Neely whined, resting her platinum blonde head on her mother's shoulder.

"Boat?"

"It must be one of the models he built with Alexander," Deanna said. "You like his boats? I'm sure Alexander would build one with you, if you want one. I'm sorry Lucas is being so possessive."

"It's okay, honey, sit with us if you want." Leila put an arm around her daughter. 

That led to Neely-friendly conversation, so back to the wedding of Maria and Wes, and having Neely be the flower girl or a bridesmaid was debated in a good-natured way, until Maria decided Sophia should be the flower girl. 

Eventually, the boys returned from the bedroom and again, the conversation turned -- this time on how Alexander would fit into the wedding party. When their friends departed -- the college students first, then Beverly had to go get ready for an evening shift at the clinic, and Leila took Neely for a visit to another friend's house -- leaving only family. And it was nearly dinner time at that point. 

"We'll go look at the new house after your father gets home," Deanna said, as the boys started another of the projects they enjoyed so much. This time no doubt an attempt to appeal to their father -- a ship in a bottle kit, that Alexander had pulled out of the big bag he'd dropped inside the door.

"Everything's okay, right?" Alexander asked. 

For the hundredth time, Deanna almost commented on how much like his father he sounded. It was eerie how much like Worf he could be, at times. She bounced Sophia on her hip and smoothed back her light brown hair, walking around the table where the boys were setting out pieces of the Spanish galleon they were somehow supposed to build inside a large glass bottle. "Yes, in fact, we're going to take everyone out to dinner -- we're meeting at the Mad Dog later."

Lucas turned, twisting his body around to grin up at her. "Momma's having another baby," he announced.

"Lucas," she scolded, stopping behind his chair and running her fingers through his curly dark hair. 

"Dad always says he wants ten kids," Alexander teased. 

"Mom keeps eating those weird crackers," Lucas told Alexander. "The ones with the kelp. She ate them all the time before Sophie was born."

"Apples and trees, I suppose," Deanna said. Her little detective had a penchant for mimicking his father, who sometimes shared what she believed were age-inappropriate bedtime stories with his son. 

The door opened, and in came the tree -- Jean-Luc had a smile ready and it turned into a grin, upon seeing Alexander there. "There you are -- you're early," he exclaimed. Alexander left off counting masts to maul his stepfather in the name of a hug. Sophia started to lean toward her father, so he had to take her to silence her whining.

"Captain Holloway said to tell you hi," Alexander said. "It's good to be home. Mom says we get to go see the new house?"

"Yes, indeed. Let me just change out of this." He had the jacket half off as he headed back into the bedroom. Deanna followed him, taking Sophia back so he could finish removing the jacket and the undershirt. He snorted upon turning to find her watching him.

"You have strange tastes," he commented.

"You complain about strange things," she retorted. He was still in fine shape, looking just the same as ever. She knew he took advantage of the gym at Command; sometimes she joined him. "Frustrating day?"

He sighed, sitting on the end of the bed to pull off the boots. "With the Cardassian appeal for Federation membership comes a lot of skepticism from older admirals who remember fighting them in the war. Either war, or both. At least they can't bully me about it."

"I doubt so many of them came so close and personal to Cardassians, true. Are you happy, Jean-Luc?"

She asked, once in a while. She knew that overall he had been, but also that he had become good at concealing things. The closer they were, the more aware of each other they were, the more it enabled him to find moments to think privately about things. She didn't always sense everything. Jean-Luc went to the closet, to find civilian clothing and think about the question.

"I still miss it, once in a while," he said. "But I can't say I regret returning to Earth. How are you feeling?"

"A bit tired. I spent most of the day with our friends and the kids. Wes asked if I'd heard from Kate."

"I actually asked Marius the other day -- he has heard nothing. And you would think he would, if anyone had." Jean-Luc pulled on a green and blue sweater, and fastened his pants. "It really makes me wonder if she's still alive."

Deanna said nothing, kissing Sophia's forehead -- the toddler was drooping against her mother's shoulder and acting like she was about to fall asleep. 

"Are you happy?"

Deanna watched him reach into the closet for a jacket, and took her own internal inventory. "I am. Though I am considering taking on more hours at the clinic, and offering to teach one of the counseling classes at the university."

"Are we telling the kids about the pregnancy yet?" He shoved his arm through the sleeve and adjusted the black jacket over his shoulders. 

"Lucas already put it together based on my craving for those crackers."

Jean-Luc snorted at that. "He's that observant. The teacher has him moving into more advanced math, apparently. I can't believe how smart he is, I think about myself at that age and start to feel inadequate."

Deanna sighed, fondly smiling at the thought of their son. "Do you think that Section 31 still exists, in some form?"

She hadn't asked the question before, though they had at times spent a little time wondering together over some individual exhibiting odd behavior. There had not been anything suspicious, at least so far as Deanna had seen or sensed, since the end of the Dominion War. After Elena's retirement there had been nothing at all. It was as if Marius stepping up to be the Fleet Admiral had put an end to it. Darius, unfortunately, still languished in captivity after being convicted of a number of criminal acts while he was in charge of Starfleet Intelligence.

Jean-Luc took Sophia from her and absently held the drowsy toddler in one arm, while she yawned and cooed softly. "I couldn't tell you. I don't think that we will know unless there is another dire threat to the Federation. Likely any unknown agents are simply engaging in their daily lives waiting for a reason to intervene. But I am glad that we intervened as we did. The outcome of the war was bloody, but not as dishonest as it might have been."

"I still wonder about Will. He's as elusive as Kate."

"We haven't talked about this in a long, long time," Jean-Luc exclaimed, with a little disapproval. "Is there some reason you're concerned about it?"

"I suppose it just reminded me of it all, when Wes asked about Kate. I should have asked why he was thinking about her. I think we still need to be vigilant, you know? Perhaps something reminded him of it."

"Let's go -- let the kids pick their rooms in the new house, while there is still daylight."

They left the bedroom and rejoined the boys in the living room. Deanna glanced at Jean-Luc with a smile. "You boys are going to be very happy with the house your father chose for us, I think. It's on a hill overlooking San Francisco Bay."

"Is it like Uncle Robert's house?" Lucas asked. He'd spent a lot of time with his uncle, and his cousin Rene. 

"Not exactly -- more modern, and bigger," Jean-Luc said. "Computer, contact the local cab service and request a shuttle."

Deanna caught Alexander watching them with a curious level of intensity. When her eyes met his, he grinned sheepishly. 

"I was just thinking about my father," he said. "It's been a long time, since I thought about him. I used to think about him every day."

"What were you thinking about, now?" She picked up the bag of Sophia's things -- snacks, a change of clothing, diapers, and a few other things they might find useful while out and about -- that always sat near the door. 

"I think he would be happy that everything turned out the way it did. It makes me happy."

Deanna blinked back a few tears at that, turning, taking her foster son's arm -- he was easily a foot taller than she. "I think he would be very proud of you, not-so-little tiger."

Alexander laughed -- it was a deep, rolling baritone, much like what she would have expected Worf's laughter to sound like, though he had so rarely done so in the years she'd known him and never with so much freedom of expressing the joy he never quite felt. 

"Thanks, Mom," he rumbled, leaning to kiss her on the head.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was a long time coming, but I finally found the end of the story.
> 
> It was never going to be a neat ending, tied up with a bow, conclusions made and with a confident sense of completion. But the real problem at the heart of it is that people of dubious ethics are always among us, and freedom of choice and belief mean that we cannot completely divest ourselves of people who fall into such deviousness and muddy beliefs that don't mesh with the larger goal of evolved, civilized, ideals. Gene Roddenbury's fantasies notwithstanding.


	71. Alexander's Essay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> after Deanna comes back from her mission to find Ro Llaren, Alexander's teacher gives her an essay he wrote while she was gone. I didn't write the essay into the story so am adding it as a postscript.

What is Family?

My father told me that family is one of the most important things. Family is about who we are. I don't understand why he can say that but not be with my mother and me before she died. But he's dead now. I lived with my grandparents and that was hard, because they did their best but I missed my mother so much I was angry a lot and they couldn't help me. Father did his best too but he didn't want me to be myself. He wanted me to be a Klingon first. I don't understand how to do that. I wanted to. But I don't want to do some of the Klingon things. I don't want to hurt people.

I asked Commander Data what a family is. He told me that it would depend on what culture we were discussing, but that a family is "a basic social unit consisting of parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not: the traditional family." He said that sometimes humans will define it differently. That didn't help me understand anything.

I asked the captain what he thinks family is. He said it's who we feel bonded to, that sometimes it's people we are born to and sometimes it's people who share your heart. I don't know what that really means exactly. I think he means the ones we love the most. He wouldn't talk much about it. He misses Mom. I miss Mom. I want her to come back. I guess we are a family now. I love my Mom, and I think I can love him, and I know he really loves her because it makes him so upset that she isn't here. Mom told me once that everyone handles their feelings differently, that when I'm hurt or scared I get angry, and she gets sad, and the captain sort of does both but he doesn't show it so much, he gets quiet. My father was angry a lot. Mom used to be his counselor and she used to tell him to say what he really felt, when he was angry. She helps me sometimes to figure out what I'm really feeling too because she's right, sometimes it isn't just angry. But I don't always know what it is because the anger is strong and it hides other feelings. I have to think about it and it's hard to think when I'm angry. 

I think because there are so many different answers that family is what we decide it is, so I will decide that it's the people I want to be my family. I hope my Mom comes home. I like our family. I don't want to have to find another one. This one is the best family I have so far. They help me be better than I was. Family helps you be who you should be.

I love my family.


End file.
